Climate Change Minister Greg Barker is leading a trade delegation of UK business leaders to East Africa next week to drum up renewable energy investment.

Taking in Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania, the group of around 20 firms will meet with some of the region’s most senior policy and decision makers to “open doors” for UK business, says DECC.

Minister of State Greg Barker said: “East Africa has huge potential for new renewable energy projects, including wind, solar and geothermal making the region a potentially lucrative destination for international investment.”

George Percy of Cluff Geothermal, one of the firms joining the delegation from 1-5 October, said geothermal was a “fast growing sector globally” which has “great potential to provide cheap and clean power to the countries of East Africa”.

Kenya for example, which is highly dependent on hydro and thermal power as only a third of the population is linked to the national grid, has huge potential for geothermal: the Rift Valley (pictured) is a focus for the country’s geothermal capacity, estimated to be between 7000MWe -10000MWe.

Julian Richardson of Parhelion added: “London is the global leader in insurance services and using insurance market capital to support the development of clean energy policy and deployment of renewable energy technology in this region has many mutual benefits.”