GDC makes Kshs. 1.6 Billion profit, Turn around from lossmaking in 2015

The Geothermal Development Company (GDC) has made a Kshs. 1.6 Billion profit after tax in the year ended June 2015 turning a corner from lossmaking the previous year according to results announced  during the company’s annual general meeting by GDC Chairman Gershom Otachi Bw’Omanwa.

“During the year GDC entered into a steam sales agreement for the sale of 320MW of steam to KenGen out of which we have generated a Kshs 2.5 Billion gross revenue,” said the GDC Chairman.

Additionally, the company generated more income from consultancy services. As a regional leader in geothermal technology, drilling and geo-scientific matters, GDC continued to offer its expertise to countries endowed with geothermal resources in the greater Eastern Africa region.

“The path of profitability is exciting to us. It means that going forward GDC will be able to smoothly meet its financial obligations. This development will also afford GDC more capabilities to undertake bigger and diverse projects,” said the chairman.

GDC is the leading developer of green energy from geothermal resources in Kenya and has been in operation since 2009, GDC has proven 544MW of steam, a feat that had never been achieved before.

From the 1950s to 2009 when GDC was established, Kenya had only exploited 167MW of geothermal power out of the vast 10,000MW available potential. Today, in about seven year, Kenya has more than tripled the amount of electricity from geothermal sources, thanks to GDC’s effort in accelerating the mining of geothermal steam.

Out of GDC’s total 544MW, 320MW of steam have been converted into electricity and added to the national grid.

In terms of opportunity cost, the use of geothermal steam to generate electricity has displaced diesel and effectively saved the country huge sums of money in oil imports.

The injection of additional green energy into Kenya’s Power mix has reduced the cost of power by 22% and 35% for domestic and industrial consumers respectively. nergy – Sessional paper No. 4 of 2004, and the energy Act No.12 of 2006 – which un-bundled the key players in the electricity sector to ensure efficiency.