- Kenya says its electricity grid can’t maintain the proposed one-gigawatt Microsoft facility demand
- President Ruto warns powering the venture would require nationwide electricity rationing measures
- The preliminary 100-megawatt part already strains Olkaria geothermal output capability
A proposed Microsoft 1-gigawatt data center in Kenya would demand a lot electricity that the nation merely can’t supply that energy.
Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-based G42 introduced the venture in Might 2024 throughout President Ruto’s official go to to Washington DC, promising a geothermal-powered cloud area within the Olkaria space of Kenya’s Rift Valley area.
Nevertheless Kenyan President William Ruto lately informed a Nairobi viewers that operating this facility would power a horrible nationwide selection.
Kenya goes darkish if the data center comes up
“We would want to change off half the nation for the data center to be powered,” President Ruto stated.
The stark actuality is that Kenya lacks sufficient spare megawatts for this bold know-how venture; its whole energy grid can’t even deal with the power’s monumental electricity urge for food.
Kenya’s complete nationwide put in capability sits between 3,000 and three,200 megawatts from all sources mixed.
Its peak electricity demand already reached 2,444 megawatts in January 2025, throughout common each day utilization throughout the nation, that means a full 1-gigawatt data center would devour roughly one-third of the nation’s complete energy supply.
Even the primary 100-megawatt part would drain a major share from the Olkaria geothermal complicated, which presently produces solely 950 megawatts throughout all its particular person energy crops working collectively.
No additional capability exists for such an enormous new electricity consumer anyplace on the Kenyan grid.
No answer in sight
John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Info, informed Bloomberg that the venture has not been formally withdrawn from consideration but.
He claims each events are nonetheless discussing the venture, as a result of the “scale of the data center they wished to do nonetheless requires some structuring.”
The Kenyan authorities is not going to shut off half the nation for any single personal facility working inside its borders.
Microsoft refuses to simply accept much less energy than its authentic billion-dollar plan demanded for that particular location.
A separate 60-megawatt venture with native developer EcoCloud stays below lively dialogue proper now as a smaller different, however the principle billion-dollar Olkaria proposal is stalled over capability disagreements and lacking electrical infrastructure throughout Kenya.
Microsoft spent $1.5 billion on G42 in 2024 after G42 agreed to take away Huawei gear below American strain.
Microsoft president, Brad Smith, known as the Kenya venture the “single largest step ahead” for digital know-how within the nation’s historical past – nevertheless, a step that calls for a 3rd of a nation’s electricity might not be an actual step ahead for Kenyan residents.
A data center can’t be known as progressive if it requires each different consumer to change off their lights.
Practically half of the US data center builds this yr have been delayed or cancelled attributable to energy shortages – and if Western economies are cancelling data facilities attributable to energy shortages, Africa, with its rising infrastructure wants, is probably going not a area for power-hungry data center tasks.
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