By Anton Lang (TonyfromOz) ~
Just how useless can a Solar Power Plant be?
Kenya will be getting a new Solar Power Plant, but will this be in Kenya’s best interests?
Well, no, really.
Just like other Countries around the World which are also moving to incorporate more Renewable Power Plants, even those in the still Developing World are also moving in this direction, and Kenya is one of the latest to be doing this.
When you think of the Continent of Africa, you don’t really think of it as being a fully Developed country, but there are some Countries that you do think of in Africa as having some of the things that we in the already Developed World have. One of those things is a reasonable access to electrical power, something which we, in that already Developed World take so utterly for granted, and because of that, there is a somewhat false assumption that most Countries do indeed have access to a reliable supply of electricity.
So, is Kenya one of those Countries which has access to reliable and readily available electrical power?
Well, no, again.
There are 54 recognised Countries which go to make up the Continent of Africa, and Africa, as a whole, has a population of 1.1 Billion people. Of those 54 Countries, Kenya has the 7th highest population, at 43.3 Million People.
The area of the Country of Kenya is 224,080 square miles and for some perspective, that’s a little smaller than Texas, which has an area of 268,580 square miles and a population of 26.5 Million. I live in Australia which has a total area of just under 3 Million square miles. Australia has 6 States and 2 Territories. The State which is closest in area to Kenya is New South Wales, (NSW) which has an area of 309,000 square miles, and of those 8 States and Territories, NSW ranks only 5th in size, but it is still considerably larger than Kenya. The population of the whole of Australia is 23 Million people, so it has slightly more than HALF the population of Kenya. That State of NSW has a population of 7.3 Million, so while NSW is considerably larger in area than Kenya, it only has one sixth of the population of Kenya.
So then, just how Developed is Kenya?
Of those 54 Countries, Kenya ranks 11th by the size of its economy. In the most technologically advanced African Countries, Kenya ranks higher , and in fact is the 4th most technologically advanced of all those 54 Countries in Africa.
We all saw those awful images recently of that terrorist attack at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. That shopping mall looks like any other large shopping mall anywhere, so it might give the impression that Kenya does have some of the things we are used to in the Developed World. While we watched this terrible drama unfolding, you couldn’t help but notice that this shopping mall looked quite modern, giving perhaps a false impression that Kenya is in fact better developed than most of the poorer Countries.
Shopping Malls, with all their shops, and especially Supermarkets with their large banks of cool and cold storage are huge consumers of electricity.
So then, just how much electrical power does Kenya really have?
Kenya has 20 power plants in all. 14 of those are hydroelectric plants, 3 of them are geothermal plants and there is one small wind plant.
The total Nameplate Capacity for ALL of those 20 power plants is 1800MW ….. and yes, read that again.
1800MW.
That is for the whole of Kenya.
ONE large scale coal fired power plant has a Capacity of 2000MW+, so the whole COUNTRY of Kenya has less power than one large scale coal fired power plant. Here in Australia, one of the largest coal fired power plants is the Bayswater plant at Musswellbrook in NSW, and this plant has a Nameplate Capacity of 2640MW. It has four 660MW units. So, just three of those units (1980MW) have a greater capacity than all the power stations which supply the whole of Kenya.
That’s not the whole story though because while Capacity is always a relatively misleading figure, let’s then look at the power being generated for delivery to the grids for consumption by the people of Kenya in the Residential sector, and all its Commerce and Industry, the three sectors of power consumption, and that amount of power being generated comes in at 7.33TeraWattHours. (TWH) per year.
The amount of power being generated across the whole of Australia is close to 230TWH. So while Australia has just half the population of Kenya, Australia generates 31 times the power for consumption by all electricity users across those three sectors of consumption, Residential, Commerce, and Industry.
In Texas, the total power being generated is 364TWH per year, just under 50 times as much as for the whole of Kenya, and even Texas has just more than only half the population of Kenya.
That same 7.33TWH generated by all the power plants in Kenya is generated by the Bayswater plant here in Australia every ….. 153 DAYS.
You might think from this that Kenyan residents are frugal with their consumption of electricity, but only the most ardent green believer would assume that. What it does mean is that outside of the capital Nairobi, (and even then, probably even large sections of that city) very few people have access to electricity, any electricity at all, let alone the constant, regulated and readily available access to electrical power we take so utterly for granted here in the already Developed World. Most probably it could even be as high as 80% of that population of Kenya have no access to electricity at all, let alone even approaching a fraction of what we have.
So then, with such a tiny amount of electrical power to run a populous Country like Kenya, what is the latest plan for supplying power to Kenyans?
A Solar power plant!
This is the link to an article on the proposal for this new Solar Power Plant. It will be a Solar PV (Photovoltaic) plant, in other words, the panels themselves will be generating the electrical power, and this only happens when the Sun shines on those panels during daylight hours only.
One of the key parts of that article is the following:
The plant is expected to produce about 76,470 MWH per year while contributing to reduced carbon emissions by 54,190 tons per annum and reducing coal consumption by 24,470 tons per year.
The most important part of this statement is the figure for the power which is being generated, but it seems odd that they should choose to include the reduction in CO2 emissions and the amount of the reduction in coal consumption, because, you see, Kenya has no coal fired power plants. What is meant here is that these reductions would be of that magnitude ….. if an equivalent 50MW coal fired power plant was being constructed instead of this solar plant, and even then a 50MW coal fired power plant is not only a small plant, but positively tiny.
Note the specific amount of power which is being generated, stated here as 76,470MWH. (MegaWattHours) This is a theoretical total based upon the Capacity Factor, (CF) in other words the theoretical total power produced over the full year, if all goes well. This figure gives this Plant a CF of 17.4%, which is around the World average for this type of Solar PV plant. Now, what that CF translates to is that, while this plant will be delivering parts of its power over the full (bright, sunny, clear, cloud free) daylight period, that CF means that the plant will be delivering it’s full rated 50MW for only 4 hours a day. (17% of 24 hours) when averaged across the whole year.
This total of 76,470MWH means that this plant will be adding 1% to the overall total power delivered to the Kenyan power grid. Now, that 1% may seem to be quite a large amount, but coming from such a tiny base, it gives the false impression of being a lot. Also, that 1% again may seem to be a lot, but keep in mind here that this plant will only be delivering its total power for around 4 hours a day, (averaged) during the daylight hours only.
The article also mentions that the cost for the plant is not yet in the public domain. Even so, the Kenyan Government will be sinking the Country’s money into this project as part payment, done in conjunction with the Chinese Company, so, that Company will be being well paid for this project. As a secondary thing, this also qualifies that Chinese Company for Carbon Credits, as this counts as part of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, (CDM) which is specifically designed to reimburse foreign Companies for investing in clean renewable power plants in Countries which are classified as still Developing. Those Credits can be used by the Company to offset their emissions back in their home Country, or they could even be sold outright on the Carbon Trading market.
So, for a Country like Kenya which has very little access to a constant reliable and readily accessible supply of electrical power, this solar plant is most definitely not an answer to that predicament, where very few people have that access to electrical power, and this does nothing at all to bring electrical power to the vast millions of people in Kenya who have no power. When this plant is up and operational, those people will still have no electrical power. This will do absolutely nothing for them.
As I mentioned in the opening sentence, this is a prime example of a totally useless power plant.