Category: Uncategorized

Alternative options on card to avert power crisis

THE impact of power shedding is expected to lessen with 30 Megawatt of electricity to be fed into the national grid soon, the Deputy Minister for Energy and Mineral, Mr Adam Malima, has said.

He said the 20MW turbine from the independent power producer, Songas, is expected to be in operation on Friday and Hale turbine producing 10MW is expected to start operating soon.

“In Hale, the engineers were completing minor repairs and were supposed to have completed their work between 15th and 16th of this month,” Mr Malima told ‘Daily News’ by phone yesterday.

Songas experts told the Minister for Energy and Mineral, Mr William Ngeleja, yesterday that the 20MW turbine was undergoing tests before they start generating electricity. The minister was inspecting the Songas turbine which is expected to start working by end of this week.

With the 30MW expected to be loaded to the national grid soon, Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) will be facing a deficit of 120MW of electricity, which is expected to be cut further with the 60MW expected between November and December, this year.

“Repairs are going very well, I have been told that the machine has been repaired and is undergoing tests before it starts working on Friday,” Mr Ngeleja explained.

The government, he said, was following closely on repairs of all power generating machines to ensure they are back in operation. With Kihansi turbine that produces 60MW expected to be fully repaired and operating between November and December, power load shedding will ease considerably by 90MW.

“Reports from engineers from Norway and Tanesco say repairs are going very well at Kihansi and we expect the turbines to be generating power between November and December", Mr Ngeleja explained.

He said the government has short, medium and long term plans to ensure power crisis was averted in future. These include purchase of the 160MW power generating machines by Tanesco and use of Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) electricity generating machines.

Mr Ngeleja did not have the price for the soon to be purchased machines by Tanesco, but said the cost of 1MW was sold for between one million US dollars and 1.5 million US dollars, bringing the total cost for the 160MW machines to 200 million US dollars.

“In the short plans we want to ensure that all power generating machines are back in operation to avert losses the government, private sector and the public is experiencing,” he explained.

Mr Ngeleja said intensive discussion between the government and IPTL were underway to have IPTL generators (capable of producing 60MW) to start producing electricity for the national grid.

The deputy minister, however, could not quantify how much the government and business community was losing. But he said the government was looking at all available option of lessening the power crisis.

“The power crisis is causing a big loss to the nation, let alone the industrial sector. We have to look at all options. IPTL is one of the options which we are looking at,” he explained.

Tanesco Executive Director Dr Idris Rashid was outside Dar es Salaam when contacted for comment.

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS

‘Increasing Energy Access through Enterprise’ Toolkit

The wikipage of USAID on ‘Increasing Energy Access through Enterprise’, is featuring a case study on Zara Solar, Mwanza, Tanzania. The website seems very informative, with practical tools (see toolkit).http://energyaccess.wikispaces.com/

The resources in this “Wikispace” are meant to serve two purposes: (1) to serve as a “filing cabinet” of information and resources that can be used, collaboratively debated and brought up to date; and (2) as a home for a toolkit of materials — presentations and spreadsheets, guidebooks and learning manuals, case studies of what works and what has failed, reference documents and videos. The audience is a diverse group of development practitioners, government officials and energy entrepreneurs.

This “toolkit” is informed by practical experiences that on the one hand have been successful, scaleable and self-sustaining, and on the other by things that have been, at best, partially successful. The toolkit is organized by topic and also by type of resource as described on the following page.

African countries will speak with one voice at Copenhagen climate summit: AU chief

13 October 2009, Xinhua
URL: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/12/content_12218664.htm

Ouagadougou: African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Jean Ping declared on Sunday in Ouagadougou that African countries had decided to adopt a common position and to speak in one voice during the UN climate summit scheduled for December in Copenhagen. Jean Ping made this declaration during the 7th world forum on sustainable development, held as from Oct. 9 to 11 in Ouagadougou under the theme "Climate Change: challenges and opportunities for sustainable development."

While insisting that the problem of climate change will from now on be pursued by Africa as a developmental problem and be an integral part in the economic growth, Jean Ping pointed out that for the first time, a common African position on climate change was elaborated taking into account the specificities and the continental priorities. Africa has decided to speak with only one voice and has appointed a team of negotiators with expertise to negotiate on her behalf in Copenhagen," the AU chief explained.

According to him, this common position for Africans is aimed at getting the engagement of those responsible for global warming, especially the industrialized countries, to reduce the gas emissions and respond to the principle of polluters pay. This position was also to help the African continent to adapt herself to climate change.

Jean Ping also regretted that Africa is the least prepared continent to tackle the challenges of climate change because it does not have the required means to confront the consequences of environmental degradation and her ecosystem which is already fragile.

"The African heads of state and governments of the African Union came up, in the last two years, with evidence of an injustice which has neither been corrected to date or repaired and which is that, for a continent with only 3.5 percent of the gas emissions, Africa is paradoxically the most vulnerable, experiencing the most serious consequences of climate change: drought, floods and soil erosion," he noted.

While speaking at the forum, former French president Jacques Chirac indicated that development aid to poor countries was the most effective way of helping them overcome the effects of climate change. According to him, its futile to oppose the fight against poverty in place of fighting climate change because it’s development aid that helps to fight misery, facilitates the best agricultural practices, pastoral and energy.

Pointing out that it’s the misery of men that leads them to destroy forests, impoverish biodiversity and pollute water, Chirac said that it’s the climate of the entire planet that is going to suffer the consequences. For him, the least developed countries should have exceptional solidarity if they will remove their people from poverty and also achieve the necessary investments to avoid the risks associated with climate change.

The Ouagadougou forum was held under the theme "climate change: challenges and opportunities for sustainable development."