Kenya:

Kenya’s First Carbon Credits from Geothermal Energy Pay for Schools (World Bank)

Last month, I drove through dust on bumpy dirt roads from Nairobi to visit the Oloirowua Primary School in Suswa, 140 kilometers northwest of the Kenya capital. The school sits on the vast savannah near Hell’s Gate National Park, an area with substantial geothermal potential.

Here, KenGen, Kenya’s electric generating company, has built the country’s largest geothermal plant with support from the World Bank. It’s part of the utility’s effort to “green the grid.”

At the school, classes are being taught outdoors and kids sit under a few trees with notebooks in their laps. Their old and crumbling school will soon be replaced by a new building that will accommodate 200 students. Their faces light up when they talk about the new school, and I feel thankful for being able to work with projects like this where I see the direct effects of our work on kids’ education.

The money to build the school comes from the sale of carbon credits. KenGen received the credits for investing in renewable energy that displaces dirtier sources such as coal in the national grid, and the company then sells them to the World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF). The fund pays KenGen a premium on the credits, but in return requires that part of the revenue stream from the credits is used for social co-benefits.

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