Marco Borero is a 1.5MW ground mounted, grid-tied, solar photovoltaic power plant. The power plant is located in Nyeri County, 50km North of Nyeri town on Nyahururu-Nyeri road.
Marco Borero power plant occupies almost 8 acres of land.
The site is on a flat savannah terrain surrounded by rocky hills and meandering Ngari-Ng'iro River.Solio Ranch, where the famous white rhinos ranch, is less than 10km away. The location is on the Equator and enjoys long overhead sunshine hours all year round. According to the prefeasibility studies the solar irraditaion levels can be up to 6.75kWh/m2/day in this locatiom which is approximately 2000 metres above the sea level. The climatic pattern is characterized by dry and windy savannah grassland conditions.
Cooperative Bank of Kenya provided debt component of the capital while Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) of United Kingdom, provided the much needed equity to boost the already sweat capital invested by the developer. REPP's fund is managed by CAMCO Clean Energy. In the project finance, the leverage is generally 80:20.
Feasibility study was carried out by Sharp Corporation of Japan in collaboration with Powertechnics of Kenya. The study was performed based on an Expression of Interest (EOI) and it was approved under the Feed-In Tariffs policy by the Ministry of Energy on the 4th of April 2013. A NEMA licence was also issued on 13th November 2013.
Following the feasibility study, negotiations with Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) were undertaken and a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) was executed on 31st August 2017.
On 27th May 2020 Energy & Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) issued a generation license to Marco Borero.
Astonfield Solesa Solar Kenya Limited are the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC).
The sub-contractors on site is Adrian Kenya while our consulting engineers is Leeds Engineering Company Limited. Marco Borero is going to use Jinko panels of 450-455 Watts and SMA inverters technology.
Construction is ongoing and we expect completion by 31st March 2021.
