A fourth industrial buyer signs for 18 MW of geothermal power at Olkaria.

For an asset owner holding firm generation capacity in East Africa, the question of whether an industrial buyer can be brought to the plant rather than the power sent to the buyer has gained a fourth data point. KenGen said on 13 March 2026 that Synergetic Development Group had joined its Green Energy Park at Olkaria, Naivasha, as the park's fourth investor. The agreement covers 18 MW of power, 10 acres of land and 360 cubic metres of water a year, and the investor intends to build a logistics centre for steel products alongside a steel fabrication plant.

The site itself is a special economic zone, set up to host industries whose processes need large volumes of electricity, with water and land available in the same place. The power utility behind it reports 1,786 MW of installed capacity, more than 90 per cent of it renewable, including 754 MW of geothermal, 826 MW of hydro and 25.5 MW of wind, and it puts its share of installed capacity across the Eastern Africa region above 60 per cent. Measured against that geothermal fleet, the 18 MW committed here is a little over two per cent of it.

Assessment: for independent power producers weighing a similar structure, the notable feature is not the volume but where the negotiation sits, because land, water and site terms replace transmission access and a tariff set by an electricity regulator as the binding constraints, and no price, contract length or start date accompanies this announcement.

What a PPA holder can price from this is therefore limited, and that is the point worth tracking. The terms on which a fifth investor signs, and whether any of these agreements disclose a per-unit tariff, would show what a co-located industrial offtake is actually worth against sales into a national system. Market reform in neighbouring systems will decide whether the structure travels beyond the fence of a special economic zone.