This news is proof that bitcoin provides the incentive to expand renewable energy.

Kenya currently has too much electric generation capacity, thanks to large investment in renewables (geothermal, hydroelectric generation, and wind). That capacity, plus other generation methods, including thermal (e.g., diesel) is significantly greater than the current demand by the nation's grid.

More geothermal electric generation capacity could be developed ... there's about 10,000 MW of potential generation capacity just in Kenya, and there's a total of 15,000 MW potential throughout the East African Rift system.

[Larger image] Source

But demand for electricity is expected to grow in the country due to a growing economy, which is boosted by a very young population (over half the country's population is under 25 years old).

Kenya had, years ago, planned for expanding geothermal generation capacity to 5,000 MW by 2030. But prospecting for and producing geothermal steam, nonetheless building the geothermal electric generation plants are very capital intensive. And thus these plants do not become feasible until the electricity that will be produced has a buyer. So that goal for 2030 is not likely to be reached, especially with the economic hit that the country has faced during the pandemic.

However, bitcoin is the ingredient that was missing to pull forward the plans to expand the geothermal generation capacity, ahead of demand by the grid. While the electric grid may currently need to access thermal (e.g., diesel) generation capacity during peak hours of each day, that short bit of demand (which may actually be less than 10 or so hours per week) isn't alone enough to justify building additional geothermal electric generation capacity.

But with bitcoin mining, every additional geothermal electric generation plant, which runs 24/7, could have a buyer for that electricity, 24x7!

This proves the promise of bitcoin mining, that:

Without bitcoin miners, this geothermal plant might have needed to wait until the nation's economy grew such that there was actual demand for additional electric generation capacity, which is a feasibility requirement before deciding to build an additional geothermal electric generation plant.