Olkaria Data Center has recently broken ground as KenGen recently kicked off plans of establishing a 4000-acre green energy park which will be based in Olkaria in Naivasha and is anticipated to offer cheaper, quite abundant, and steady supply of geothermal power supply to industries in the country. According to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum, Mr. Davis Chirchir, he stated that this development of the smart city industrial park by KenGen is anticipated to facilitate the development of the economy by tapping and supplying environment-friendly geothermal power that will be at a competitive price. He also added on by saying that Olkaria is strategically placed along roads that have been developed well and the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) generates 1,000MW of geothermal power and industries will be able to acquire power from there.
Chirchir also stated that the Government of Kenya had already finished a masterplan development on 1,000 acres of the 4,000 which will enable guiding of the initial development with an objective of achieving 100% environment-friendly energy by the year 2030. As for now, Kenya uses 92% of its power acquired from green and renewable energy sources. The government has also set plans to achieve 100% transformation to the use of clean energy by the year 2030. In order for this goal to be achieved, Mr Chirchir stated that the Kenyan government had invested heavily in the drilling and setting up of geothermal wells which are going to increase the megawatt capacity to the national grid.
Also read: Menengai Geothermal Power Project in Kenya Breaks Ground
This investment by Ecocloud and Konza Technopolis Development Authority which are the major investors of the first fully green-powered data center at the Green energy park is going to cost a total of $600 Million which is equivalent to Ksh87.3 Billion. Olkaria Data Center project which is referred to as Project Eagle has set goals of harnessing the power of data and data traffic that is found between the East Africa region and the rest of the world in an environmentally friendly manner and in a way that will be deemed economical.
Olkaria Data Center Capacity and Facilities
This 60-megawatt Hyperscale Olkaria Data Centre Campus will contain three different areas. Each area shall possess its very own distinctive feature. In campus 1, there shall be a large number of racks which will be a total of 2640 racks which will be providing support to its 24-megawatt load capacity of IT. In the second campus, there will be an IT load capacity of 24MW and lastly, the third campus will wind up the whole masterplan with a total of 12MW of IT load.
Olkaria Data Center project has captured the attention of key players in the data sectors like Google, Amazon Web Service, and Oracle. The data campus is connected via numerous carrier routes of fiber and also supplied by a large number of carrier fibers at multiple entry points which have the ability to extend just in case a future need for carriers might arise. Moreover, every data center building possesses up to 4 separate Meet-Me-Rooms which are designed exclusively for hyperscale-ready connectivity. Lastly, there are also quite a number of sustainability features in the Data Center design which include Rooftop Solar power generation, EV charging points, minimal water usage, and rainwater harvesting.
