Octavia Carbon Aims to Boost Carbon Capture By Leveraging Kenya’s Geothermy

Octavia Carbon is a Kenyan startup that aims to sell carbon credits via Direct Air Capture (#DAC) by leveraging on Kenya’s plentiful supply of green geothermal energy. Currently, Kenya has 50% of #geothermal in its energy mix and the geothermal energy is concentrated along from the Great Rift Valley, which is a tectonic feature measuring some 7,000 kilometers in Eastern Kenya.

The technology is cutting-edge with about 20 firms around the world being able to carry out Direct Air Capture (DAC). Octavia started a proof-of-concept with Project Hummingbird in Naivasha, Kenya. The project is financed from the USD 5 million that the startup raised in 2024.

Project Hummingbird aims to capture and store 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. It uses five DAC machines powered by steam generated from geothermal sources. The employee count at the startup is nearing 50, with plans to recruit more as the carbon capture business scales up.

In the mid-term perspective, Octavia plans to reduce the unit extraction cost from USD 680 to USD 100 per tonne through economies of scale and rapid advances in technologies.

Octavia has signed a partnership with US firm Cella Mineral Storage for the storage of the captured carbon. So far, Octavia has sold some 2,000 tonnes of carbon, generating more than USD 1 million in carbon credit revenue. The firm has also secured nearly USD 3 million in carbon credit prepayments.

According to a study by Oxford University, the world must remove at least nine billion tonnes of carbon by 2050 in order to contain global warming within the target of 1.5 degrees celsius. As far as we know, Octavia Carbon is the first Direct Carbon Capture company from the Global South and it ambitions to contribute to the #decarbonization by expanding where renewable energy is readily available.