Gorge Farm, in Kenya’s Naivasha Rift valley, is the first grid-connect anaerobic digester power plant in Africa. The 800ha vegetable farm–and also the largest fresh-produce exporter in East Africa–is able to convert its daily150 tonnes of fresh organic waste into bio-gas, which is then combusted, using GE’s J420 Jenbacher engines, into electricity.
At an installed capacity of 24 MWs, the farm is able to power its operations, sell electricity into the country’s grid and reduce carbon emissions by 7,000 tons a year. More about GE in Africa in this BRIEFING.
Gorge farm utilises local organic crop waste as feedstock for an innovative two-stage Anaerobic Digestive plant that is consistently up to 30% more efficient than conventional single-stage plants. The waste is digested by micro-organisms feeding in the absence of oxygen to produce biogas… “Through biogas and solar, we want to displace expensive and imported generation fuels – like diesel and heavy fuel oil – from Kenya’s distributed power mix” – Johnnie McMillan, Managing Director, Tropical Power.
