Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
25
News from Oldenburg Content
Impressum
Experiences 12
Careers 14
Contributed articles
• Managing Demand and Supply through decentralized
44
Electrification: The Case of Kenya
Web Links 57
Published by:
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg,
Faculty of Physics, Department of Energy and Semiconductor Research,
Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy—PPRE, D - 26111 Oldenburg
phone: +49-441-798.3544, fax: +49-441-798.3990,
e-mail: edu@uni-oldenburg.de, web: http://www.ppre.de
in a rapidly changing world, when unexpected and even disastrous turns of events hap-
pen all to frequently, the Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy and the associated
Alumni Network experience a period of stability and steady development. We are glad to
see old friends and new faces in the Seminar room of the Energielabor building, teaching,
discussing and last but not least celebrating. Germany has experienced a wonderful sum-
mer (maybe even a little bit too warm...) and a quite successful soccer world champion-
ship, which allowed the world to see new aspects of the Germans and their country. One
of these is a booming Renewable Energy industry, which is creating jobs and income to an
unexpected degree. This industry is turning its focus more and more on world-wide busi-
ness fields and thus is increasingly interested in contacts to institutions and companies in
all continents. PPRE students, fresh graduates and alumni might benefit from this kind of
`globalisation‘ already!
We are looking forward to a special event -- the PV centered DAAD Summer School in late
August 2006 (for details see link on www.ppre.de) -- and the next run of PPRE, which will
be the 19th and the third with the new, three-term structure.
With the hope that this newsletter reaches you in a state of good health and well-being.
&
1
News from Oldenburg
2
News from Oldenburg
From August 28th to September 2nd 2006 • Policy oriented Case Studies and les-
an International Summer School on Photo- sons learned from several countries
voltaics takes place at Carl von Ossietzky (e.g. rural electrification strategies,
University of Oldenburg. This event is pre- barriers of PV market penetration)
pared and hosted by the Postgraduate
Programme Renewable Energy (PPRE) and Further parts of the programme are two very
sponsored by DAAD (German Academic Ex- interesting excursions. The first one leads us
change Service). to Institute of Solar Energy Research which
is located in Hameln (near Hannover). The
This one week of workshops, lectures and second visited venue is a well known Solar
excursions covering a wide range of as- Cell Production Company named Q-Cells. It
pects all around Photovoltaics is part of a is based in Thalheim (near Leipzig) as part
two week ALUMNI Re-Invitation – Initia- of a fast growing industrial area especially
tive encouraged by DAAD. The two week hosting photovoltaic systems component
Programme consists of three PV Summer manufacturers.
Schools held simultaneously at the Univer-
sities of Oldenburg, Kassel and Freiberg dur- And last but not least this first week in Old-
ing the first week, a concerted visit of the enburg also is a perfect platform for PPRE
21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy ALUMNI, friends of the programme and all
Conference and Exhibition (http://www.pho- people interested in photovoltaics to meet
tovoltaic-conference.com/ ) in Dresden and again, to refresh old connections, to share
finally the attendance of the 3rd “Freiberg- experiences and to update knowledge in
er Solartage” http://www.exphys.tu-freiberg. photovoltaics and related renewable ener-
de/photovoltaics/ ) at Technische Unversität gy issues. Some social events all around the
Bergakademie Freiberg. summer school perfect the whole thing.
The first week from August 28th to Septem- PPRE staff is heavily looking forward to wel-
ber 2nd at Oldenburg University is going to coming lots of nice people and good friends
tackle issues in different PV-related areas as from all around the world.
there are
All in all we expect some 60 – 70 partici-
• Material science research oriented to- pants (including about 25 Alumni coming
wards PV (e.g. heterogeneous thin film directly on DAAD-ticket). Further info and
solar cells, organic solar cells) the detailed programme may be seen at the
link on www.ppre.de.
• Systems research oriented towards PV
applications (e.g. Energy meteorology,
system optimised operating character-
istics, grid connected and stand alone
PV systems)
3
News from Oldenburg
New Hydrogen Research Project as it is typical for wind and sun. The power
at the University of Oldenburg can be trapped chemically by electrolysis.
Reconversion happens by means of fuel
Torsten Bröer, Germany - PPRE 03/04 cells. So the variations can be smoothed,
and even controlled energy from renew-
Around 15 years after its last Hydrogen en- able sources can be provided. Today the lat-
gagement the University of Oldenburg starts ter comes mainly from fossil fuels like coal
a new innovative project combining Wind or natural gas.
and Hydrogen Technology. The project,
known as “HyWindBalance”, addresses the A key element of HyWindBalance is to de-
problem of the fluctuating and not fully pre- velop a system, which involves simulating
dictable nature of wind power. It will com- and testing an optimised wind-hydrogen-
bine wind with hydrogen, as energy storage, system using state of the art technique for
in order to level out electricity supply. wind power prediction, loading forecast-
ing and plant management. The project
As wind is not a steady force, its (large-scale) will also operate a pilot system combining
integration into the electricity network in- electrolyser, hydrogen storage and fuel cell
creases the demand for balancing power at the Energy Laboratory of the University
(which is usually generated from fossil re- of Oldenburg. A schematic of the system is
sources). With the use of hydrogen, there shown below:
is a potential to adjust
the electricity supply
from wind power to
the current demand
at any time: Part of the
energy is stored as hy-
drogen, to be re-con-
verted to electricity as-
and-when needed.
The Wind-hydrogen-
systems will provide
balancing power (CO2-free!) and cover peak The project will be undertaken in coopera-
load demand. They will give a new quality tion with the companies Overspeed, PLANET,
to the product that wind farm operators can Energy and Meteo Systems, Projekt Ökovest
offer. In a medium-term perspective, part of and ForWind. The former PPRE student Rich-
the “green hydrogen” may also be sold to ard Morris (PPRE 97/98) with his company
markets outside the power sector, such as Zebotec also contributes to the project by
mobility. delivering the fuel cell and the electrolyser
and doing the corresponding consultancy.
Hydrogen storage holds also the option
to integrate energy from other renewable The project HyWindBalance will be run
sources in the supply grid where the supply until the end of 2007, with a total budget
is not constant and not entirely predictable, of 1.5 million euro. It has financial support
4
News from Oldenburg
of around 620.000 euro from the federal Further information you can find under
state of Lower Saxony and the European www.HyWindBalance.com or contact Torsten
Regional Development Fund. The German Bröer at t.broeer@uni-oldenburg.de.
energy company EWE also contributes to
the project.
In winter term 2005/06 PPRE welcomed 31 ised and co-ordinated by the EUREC-Agency
new Master-students in the Renewable En- in Brussels.
ergy Programme at the Institute of Physics,
University of Oldenburg. The 20 PPRE-Students come from 16 differ-
ent countries (6 from L.A., 5 from Europe, 5
20 students enrolled in the Postgraduate from Asia, 3 from Africa and 1 from Canada).
Programme Renewable Energy (PPRE) and
11 Students in the European Renewable The PPRE-Students-List including place-
Energy Master Programme, which is organ- ments for the compulsory external practical
training are listed below:
Khan Ahmed Jahir Bangla- Rural Electr. / Micro Hydro Bangla Power Dev. Agency Dhaka,
desh Bangladesh
Caag Donnalyn Philip- Biogas Utilisation Southern Tagalog Consor- Los Banos,
Atienza pines tium for Industry and Energy Laguna, The
R&D Philippines
Jagwe Wyclif Uganda Rural Electrification NORPLAN Uganda Ltd. Kampala,
Project Uganda
5
News from Oldenburg
Beyn Mulugeta Eritrea Ethiopian Wind Energy Lahmeyer Int. Bad Vibel,
Weldetnsae feasibility study Germany
Torio Blanco Herena Spain Energetic evaluations of Fraunhofer-Institute for Build- Kassel
the buildings ing Physics
The 11 EUREC-Students, who come from 8 burg University. Thereafter they did their
different countries (5 * Europe, 3 * Canada, Specialisation courses at different European
and Pakistan, Lebanon, Mexico) only did Universities:
their core-course for 4 months at Olden-
6
News from Oldenburg
7
News from Oldenburg
In Freiburg, we also visited Volk Wasserkraft phase electricity for the trains of the German
AG - a hydropower manufacture in Gutach. national railways, Deutsche Bahn.
The company manufactures different types
of hydro turbines. We saw the manufacturing On 29th July we visited TINOX – the selec-
process of producing turbine components. tive surface manufacturer for solar absorber
in München. They showed us the produc-
Then we departed to Ottobeuren, from tion process of manufacturing titanium ab-
where we visited STECA, the battery charge sorber, which was invented by them. They
controller manufacturer in Memmingen. also gave us a lecture about sea water de-
They gave us a lecture about Battery Charge salination system using solar energy.
Controllers, and then we observed the dif-
ferent manufacturing process to produce Before return to Oldenburg we stayed two
charge controllers. They even offered us nights in the home of our colleague Michael
lunch in a nearby Chinese restaurant. Sterner in Aicha vom Wald in Passau. In the
first day we met with city mayor and visited
So we prepared ourselves to climb the Alps. a church. We also watched some renewa-
The hut is located near to a place called Kals, bles (geothermal, solar PV, Biomass) activ-
the furthest point the Bus could reach. From ity in that village. The inhabitants became
there, we had to climb 2 hours to reach the astonished seeing people from 16 differ-
place where we would stay: Luckner-Hütte ent countries (well, that happened in every
(1920 masl). The next day, early in the morn- place we visited). We could really have a
ing, we climbed another 3 hours and we final- nice insight in the life of the people in this
ly arrived to Stüdl-Hütte at 2800 m altitude! region of Germany.
What an emotion! The big effort was then
awarded. The place was just BEAUTIFUL! After one complete day (1st of July) traveling,
we finally reached Oldenburg at 9:00 pm!
We stayed one night in Stüdl-Hütte. The hut
owner explained us how the hut is powered All in all the group of 24 people (20 PPRE-
by different renewable sources,
and to our own pride, we found
that our assumptions and cal-
culations were even better than
those made by the consultants
hired to provide the solution!
8
News from Oldenburg
• and of course Hans Holtorf, PPRE alumni, Apart from that we had invited lecturers
is teaching Solar Energy I and II. He also from companies and NGOs - through the
runs the Case Study show and guides stu- PPRE website (www.ppre.de) you can
dents in the Summer term excursion (see browse the time table of past and future
extra report). weeks.
M.Sc.-Thesis – Titles
In the following all thesis titles from our graduates who finished their M.Sc.-Studies in RE by
end of last year/early this year are listed:
PPRE 2004-2006
9
News from Oldenburg
Pena Diaz Alfredo Colombia Offshore wind, turbulence and wind characteristics at
high heights. Remote sensing techniques applied to
wind energy (Lidar, SODAR, Ceilometer)
Toropov Maksim Kyrgyzstan Efficiency of Solar Aided Heating System
10
News from Oldenburg
EXPERIENCES
Travel report from INDONESIA
By Sebastian Hermann, PPRE 2004-06
For my master thesis I had the chance to Pic 1: Outdoor Lab in Indonesia, with a small
go to Indonesia for some months. I worked turbine to test different generators (200 - 300W)
there together with GTZ and ENTEC AG on
the topic Rural Electrification with the help tery charging station for family and village
of Pico Hydropower. The aim of my thesis electrification. The whole systems size was
was to design and investigate a small bat- limited to 5kW and a simple induction mo-
11
Experiences
12
Experiences
traveling + 100% food change (you can‘t Yesterday I was at a Sister‘s place and I told
get food without spices - not even break- them about my work - they brought me to
fast) put me to hospital the 3rd day - food their cooking stoves (3 stones) - loads of
poisoning - it was not that serious, but I biomass in the yard - and I told here - put an
went, because of an Thyphoid outbreak improved cooking stove - the tech is there
in our quater... now everything is stable - you‘ll save a lot - improve the efficiency
again. You just have to watch out with the from 11% to 40%. I tell you - she was flying!
food+drinks.
So work is really great - you have the feeling
Otherwise: South India is great! You smile - - that you can move and promote things.
and they smile back. Indian Society is along
with the Brazilian one of the friendliest I One more stove saves a lot of money and
ever experienced. People are so helpful, it‘s CO2 + heals nature. That‘s what our main
really a joy to stay with them. goal is, isnt it? And a new stove is just about
500 - 2000 Rupees (10 - 40 EUR).
Also the work is really interesting. They have
running gasifier since late 80s, we installed So - donations are welcomed! Some DAAD
one 2 days ago in a bakery (40kW thermal) fellow did already before here in Mysore.
and it works. Ok - they don‘t have this en-
vironmental standard as we do in Germany And if you look for spicy food, good weath-
(scrubber water goes to the sewage, a lot of er, very friendly people, some ‚Kannada‘ lan-
CO is emitted because of little insulation...) guage learning and CO2-saving work - wel-
but they really keep the tech going and pro- come to South India - It‘s great !
mote it.
CAREERS
In this chapter we would like to present the different careers taken by our graduates right
after their RE-Studies (M.Sc.) with us.
„Energie Facteur 4
Biomass RE-Cosultant &
THOMAS Denis Belgium asbl“, Belgium,
(Zaragoza) Engineer
www.ef4.be
Tristan Eu- Biomass
LERMITTE UK Temporary job n.a.
gene William (Zaragoza)
Hybrid systems PV Project
CLAUZONNIER Adrien France Suntechnics, Madrid
(Kassel) Engineer
Hybrid systems Marine Re- Marine Current Tur-
ANSELL Duncan Peter UK
(Kassel) source Analyst bines Ltd. UK.
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Careers
CIEMAT - Unidade de
ADLER GOMES Hybrid systems
João Paulo Portugal Researcher in RE Energia Eólica, Madrid,
DA COSTA (Kassel)
Spain
Hybrid systems
LECESVE Laurent France PhD-student Kassel University
(Kassel)
Hybrid systems Wind AEOLIKI, Cyprus (www.
AVRAAMIDES Stelios Cypres
(Kassel) Consultant aeoliki.com)
Photovoltaic Measurement ErSol Solar Energy AG,
CORREIA Stélio Portugal
(Newcastle) Engineer Erfurt, Germany
Creative Environmental
Solar Energy in RE Project Man-
CARRELL Justin UK Networks, UK
Buildings (Athens) ager at NGO
http://www.cen.org.uk
Solar Energy in Lahmeyer Int., Bad
MANTAS Panagiotis Greece RE - Consultant
Buildings (Athens) Vibel, Germany
DIMOPOULOS Aris Greece Wind (TU Athens) Windconsultant Freelancer
STROMBONI- Wind Project VOLKSWIND, France,
Estelle France Wind (TU Athens)
PREVOST Manager www.volkswind.com
Vestas Blades, Isle of
THIEBAUT ROMARIC France Wind (TU Athens) Wind Engineer
Wight, UK
Directorate of Program
Md. Shahriar
Chowdhury Bangladesh Assistant Engineer Bangladesh Power Development
Ahmed
Board
RET Expert, Local Government Engineering
Zobayer A.N.M. Bangladesh Sustainable Rural Department, Bangladesh
Energy www.lged-rein.org
Risoe National Laboratory
PhD-Student, Uni Wind Energy Department, Roskilde,
Pena Diaz Alfredo Colombia
Copenhagen Denmark
www.risoe.dk
Trainee / RE Microsol Solarsysteme GMBH, Ham-
Toropov Maksim Kyrgyzstan
Engineer burg www.SydneySolar.de
Dhawalagiri Community Resource
Sapkota Prakash Nepal RE Engineer
Development Centre (DCRDC)
Henriquez Christian
Peru Temporary Job GE, Cologne
Prevoo Paul
14
Careers
Looks like most absolvents got an interesting job in the field of their studies.
Please note that only those graduates are listed, who have been in touch recently. More
detailed info from some alumni are listed in chapter ´news from former alumni in brief´ !
Was working as expert until Mid 2005 at the As Executive Director of the Centre for Wind
Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Energy Technology in Chennai he send us
Paraná - CEFET-PR, Tecnologia em Química their regular news bulletin called pavan
Ambiental in Curitiba, Brasil, where he was (more info at: www.cwet.tn.nic.in) and the
lecturing Environmental Management following encouraging words on behalf of
courses and trying to help implementing a the Solar-award for PPRE:
local Renewable Energy Group. Thereafter
Eric returned to Brasilia. I think that your networking ability was
particularly very important for the grand
success of the one of its kind course that I
had the luck of attending. A great deal of
nurturing such an effort has come from the
wonderful set of people at PPRE. Congratu-
15
News from Alumni
lations to all those who made this course of of Phönix Sonnenstrom AG (www.sonnen-
ours so good. And recognition always brings stromag.de). His tasks include the evalua-
on a renewal of interest. The most impor- tion of current and new technologies and
tant thing about this effort is the wonderful system components, including maybe stan-
networking that you are doing for people dalone and hybrid systems in the future,
who passed through the programme. To which might get more in focus when shift-
think back nostalgically is one thing, which ing away the German market towards inter-
is generally rather private. But to keep the national markets. In line with this Thomas
interest going for nearly two decades is no attended the PV-Hybrid/mini grid confer-
joke ! May god give you more strength to do ence in Aix-en-Provence, 11.-12. May 2006.
even more. Please include me in the good
work you are doing and I will be more than Dr. Eng. Hassan H. Rakha, Egypt
happy to be associated.
After long silence Hassan Rakha informed us
Mr. Cesar Rivasplata, Peru that he has already got a PhD in the field of
Renewable Energy titled: ‘Design and Optimal
Together with his colleagues opened up Operation of Photovoltaic / Wind / Diesel Pow-
a new building for the Renewable Energy er Generation System by Neural Network’.
Centre at the Universidad Nacional Jorge
Basadre Grohmann in Tacna, Peru, in 2005. Since about 8 years Mr. Rakha is General
Manager of the PV Department in the New
and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA),
PPRE 1989-90 Ministry Of Electricity and Energy, Cairo,
Egypt.
Mr. Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, India
Mr. Anil Misra India
After a long time of silence, Partha informed
us, that he changed his job in 2004 already to Joined GTZ in New Delhi under its Natural
join a Pune based trust known as Indo Swiss Resource Management Programme in April
Vocational Training Trust (Initially formed by 2006. Before he was working with UNDP
SDC in association with some prominent per- India / Ministry of Environment & Forests
sons, Pune) as it‘s Director. But after joining (Government of India).
he realized a lot of management level prob-
lems. Immediately, he resigned and joined His main areas of work will be Renewables
his former organisation (a local NGO which including Biofuels and Climate Change/Ad-
is working on poverty removal programmes) aptation among other things.
in his earlier position again.
16
News from Alumni
India on the topic „Investigations on use of study trip in Germany. Their trip was organ-
soybean oil as a substitute fuel for diesel en- ised by DECON-Consultans, Bad Homburg,
gines“ in June, 2005. Krishna is working as Germany - who are doing RE-projects all
Senior Scientist in the Agricultural Energy & over the globe and also in Tanzania.
Power Division of Central Institute of Agri-
cultural Engineering in Bhopal, India. Bettina is working since her graduation in
PPRE with Decon-Consultants.
PPRE 1991-92
Is still lecturing at Makerere University in Earlier in May 2005 Chayun visited some
Kampala Uganda, in both the Renewable RE-companies in Germany together with a
Energy courses and Electrical Engineering. project manager for renewable energy of
He noticed that future programmes in the PLN, which is the Indonesian Utility Enter-
Faculty of Technology at Makerere Univer- prise. They also had a short stop over in Old-
sity will probably see Renewable Energies enburg during the trip.
becoming more expanded in near future.
Dr. Shrestha Kedar Shanker, India
In this regard, establishment/strengthening
of Laboratory facilities in RE at the Faculty With the beginning of 2006 he changed his
of Technology might be a focal point of his job again and is now attached to Lubrizol,
interests. Japan, where he is working as a technology
manager. Lubrizol company is a chemical
Ms. Bettina Abel, Germany additive maker for lubricants of vehicles. It
is a multinational company and has branch-
Visited the Energy laboratory at Olden- es in about 85 countries.
burg University again with a small delega-
tion from Tanzania. The 2 visitors are staff
at TANESCO, a utility company in Tanzania,
who have been on a wind-energy and RE-
17
News from Alumni
In Mid 2005 James Wafula was one of three Dr. Rosana Rodrigues dos Santos, Brasil
people selected to pioneer and teach
courses in Renewable Energy at the newly Was employed as General co-ordinator of
created Department of Renewable Energy the National Program „Electricity for All“ of
at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Uni- the Brasilian Ministry of Mines and Energy
versity of Nairobi. (MME) in Brasilia. Between 2003 and 2004
she has been sometimes assistant to the
One of his very first duties involved con- Minister. Under her responsibility was the
structing a course syllabus to be used by execution of the program for the 5 most im-
the students. These courses will generally portant states of Brasil (Goiás, Minas Gerais,
be divided into three categories, which are São Paulo, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro)
Certificate courses, Diploma courses, and and also the regulatory issues concerning
Masters courses. this program. The contracts she was manag-
ing amounted to 1,4 billion of Reais (almost
The first M.Sc.-course is ought to start in o,5 Billion US Dollar!) which is supposed to
Mid 2006. Its planned that James will do a be used to provide 291.000 connections to
PhD-study besides. the Grid (where grid connections were not
possible, she advised the utilities to use RE
Mr. Rolf Georg, Germany technologies, especially for the decentral-
ized systems.
Together with his wife opened up a pri-
vate school called Unidad Educativa Hein- Latest news: Rosana left the Government.
rich Zulauf in early 2005 in Sucre, Bolivia. At the beginning of 2006 she joined the
Throughout the first year about 120 pupils private sector, as the regulatory person of
(from Kindergarden to High-School) joined the distribution utility of the State of Mato
the school. Rolf will also include classes of Grosso do Sul. Additionally she is part of the
‘Fundamentals of RE-technology’ in the cur- regulatory team of the holding group EDP
riculum. (renamed recently as „Energias do Brasil“).
EDP group is the major private investor in
the Brazilian energy sector.
18
News from Alumni
Resigned from his job at Asian Institute of Mr. Melis Teka, Ethiopia
Technology (AIT) in Thailand after eight
long years on 31.8.2005. He became a full- Informed us that he is now working in the
time doctoral student to concentrate on the Ministry of Mines and Energy, as Head of the
completion of his PHD-studies, which hope- Energy Regulatory Department and that Mr.
fully will be finished by August-September Mesfin Mergia (PPRE 93/04) is located in
2006. the same department.
Augustus hopes that he might climb a step Mr. Alexandre Heringer Lisboa, Brasil
up in his career ladder once he gets the PhD-
degree. Who did the ELDORADO Wind Energy Sum-
mer Course, from July to August 1994 at
Dr. Johnny Nahui-Ortiz, Peru Oldenburg University informed us last year
as follows:
Was organising and co-ordinating the XII
Renewable Energy Symposium in Peru, The ELDORADO Summer School at Univer-
which took place November 21-26, 2005 in sity of Oldenburg was very important to my
Lambayeque, Peru. career and until today I am applying in my
Company (Companhia Energética de Minas
Mr. Björn Kuntze, Germany Gerais – Cemig) the knowledge gained at this
course. I am working for the Superintendên-
Is still involved in the research and develop- cia de Tecnologia e Alternativas Energéticas.
ment of Gasification projects. In 2006 his
Mastergas-company is planning to install a Cemig is the state owned utility from the Mi-
pilot plant of a wood-gas producer in com- nas Gerais State. Nowadays, I am working in
bination with a Co-generation unit (100 identifying potential wind sites in Minas Ge-
kWel). Another project planned will have a rais State. Also, I am managing a project in so-
power output of approx. 460 kWel. lar thermal, that is the project, assembly and
operation of the a experimental solar ther-
Mr. Debesai Ghebrehiwet, Eritrea moelectric power plant using solar troughs.
It is a very small scale - 10 kW, use aluminium
Is heading the Energy Research Training as reflector and all material services and en-
Centre - ERTC – from the Ministry of Energy, gineering is being done in Brasil. The start up
which is doing different RE projects at the should be done in end of this year.
moment, e.g. implementation of improved
stoves nation wide, Installation of 30 sets
of solar TV-Sytems, and probably purchas- PPRE 1995-96
ing some lab equipment for strengthening
the energy centre. He hints the readers of Ms. Elizabeth Kingu, Tanzania
the PPRE Newsletter to the following link:
http://eappc11.lbl.gov/eri-stoves.lbl.gov/ Beside being Ass. Director of the O&M Sec-
tion of Water Supply and Sewage Division
19
News from Alumni
Returned to Germany in April 2005 for about Returned from Curtin University, Perth. Did
20 days. He was invited by DAAD to partici- some work on a leach bed process for anaer-
pate in a Summer School at University of obic digestion in a collaborative project
Siegen. Afterwards he visited the leading between Curtin and Murdoch Universities
International Trade Fair for Waste Disposal with funding support from Australian Re-
and Environment in Munich – the IFAT 2005. search Council. Got some interesting results
and “have written up most of the thesis and
He was appointed Technical Director at IT expect to receive the PhD degree within the
Power Eastern Africa in charge of the Sus- end of the year 2005” and joined the UN-
tainable Development Programme end of FCCC Secretariat in Bonn, Germany (United
2004 already. Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change) as Program Officer later in 2005.
Latest News: In December 2005 already
Bernard joined Lafarge East Africa (Bamburi Mr. Sebastian Sancho, Costa Rica
Cement) as the Alternatives Fuels Manager.
He is responsible for spearhead fuel sub- Did open up a branch-office from the Ger-
stitution in two plants - Mombasa in Kenya man Company called RALOS GmbH in Ma-
and Hima in Uganda. Currently the plants drid, Spain about 1 year ago. He mentioned
use coal and Heavy Fuel Oil for the kilns that their solar adventure faced a smooth
which is the major area of energy consump- first year, which has helped a lot in trading
tion in Cement production. The objective of PV modules, while projects get ready for
is to convert them to at least 50% biomass installation. But bureaucracy is amazing in
and other industrial wastes. Spain, which slows down the process of im-
plementing PV-projects very much.
20
News from Alumni
21
News from Alumni
22
News from Alumni
23
News from Alumni
PPRE 2000-01
24
News from Alumni
cles to the implementation of large scale port in organic semiconductors“at the En-
wind energy projects. ergy- and Semiconductor Research Group
at University of Oldenburg end of 2005. She
(2) First approach with Oldenburg Univer- is currently holding a 2 years Post-doc posi-
sity to propose a research project related tion within the Institute of Physics at Univer-
to this field. This effort unfortunately failed sity of Oldenburg. In the Summer term 2006
due to administrative requirements. she gave a lecture course “photovoltaics”
for the present PPRE students
(3) Deeper research about mesoscale mod-
elling activities in different countries. I was
particularly interested in the work being PPRE 2001-02
done at Brazilian Wind Energy Center by Dr.
Everaldo Feitosa and Dr. Robert Benoit from Mr. Santiago Sánchez, Ecuador
Environment Canada.
Wrote in 12/2005:
(4) First personal contact with Dr. Robert Be-
noit in Montreal. My company ENERPRO is going well. I am
participating in some tenders for the supply
(5) Interest from GTZ-Mexico and Institute and installation of RE systems in the conti-
for Electrical Research (Mexican govern- nent (Amazon) and in the Galapagos. Look-
ment agency) to provide support to this ing for some distribution of RE equipment.
project as part of the UNDP project for I will start a consultancy for the Galapagos
Mexico called „Plan of Action for Removing Electric Utility on capacity building to han-
Barriers for the Full Scale Commercial Im- dle the large RE projects planned there with
plementation of Wind Power“ (UNDP) UN funds. Also, we are entering the area
of energy efficiency. There is a lot of work;
(6) After many efforts and with strong sup- hopefully this will translate into earnings
port from Dr. Spitta from DAAD-Mexico, I next year.
was finally accepted as PhD student by TU
Freiberg. I am also teaching RE at the Universidad San
Francisco de Quito. It is a private university
2004: The project is finally and kindly sup- of prestige <www.usfq.edu.ec>. They also
ported by EAB-Technology Group, company run an Energy and Environment Post Gradu-
based in Freiberg, with about 400 MW in ate Course together with the University of
projects in Brazil and interest to eventually Calgary (CANADA) for American students.
develop wind energy projects in Mexico.
Btw: I had the opportunity to attend the
2005: Award of a DAAD Scholarship to pur- Solar World Congress 2005 in Orlando,
sue PhD Studies. Florida, this past August and in one of the
conferences the speaker said “Renewables
Dr. Elizabeth von Hauff, Canada is not a job, IT IS A CAUSE” and I am glad
(and probably you too) we are involved in
Successfully finished her PhD titled „Field this endeavour for a better world. It will take
effect investigations of charge carrier trans- time, but we will leave a track.
25
News from Alumni
As Regional Manager for Southeast Asia Is presently doing his PhD-research titled
from SunTechnics GmbH, Hamburg, Germa- ‘Study of technological, economical and
ny (which is a subsidiary company of Coner- social aspects to energize off-grid region
gy AG) Mr. Risse is currently in charge for the through distributed generation in devel-
establishment of another subsidiary office oping countries’ at Wuppertal Institute for
for Southeast Asia, which will be located Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany.
in Singapore. Actually they are recruiting Within the scope of his PhD Anand is sup-
new staff for their Singapore office at the posed to carry out several case-studies in
moment and still looking for experienced different countries. Therefore he spent the
manpower. first half of 2005 in Vietnam and thereafter
he joined the Energy Research Center (ERC),
In April 2006 Mr. Risse moved with his fam- University of Cape Town, South Africa for
ily to Singapore for 3 years. a Case-study on “Understanding of Rural
Electrification in South Africa“(please see
Mr. Alejandro Umana, Columbia details in other article).
Quit working with Garrad Hassan and Part- Mr. Aravind PV, India
ners in Bristol, UK, by end of March 2006. He
joined UPC Europe Wind Management in Who is still doing his PhD-studies at Section
London. Their main aim for development of thermal power engineering, Faculty of
is east European countries but they are also Design, Engineering and Production, Delft
active in countries like India and the Philip- University of Technology, The Netherlands,
pines. was invited to PPRE, University of Olden-
burg in early June 2005 for providing a Gasi-
Dr. Quoc Khanh Nguyen, Vietnam fication-Seminar to PPRE-students.
Presently Khanh is working at the Hanoi In- After some years with IT Power India in Pon-
stitute of Energy, but his work there has not dicerry Butchaiah has been accepted for
much to do with renewable energy. PhD studies at the Joint Graduate School of
Energy and Environment (JGSEE), which is
an autonomous graduate school instituted
26
News from Alumni
under the jurisdiction of the Council of the Bank of Construction Management (EBRD)
King Mongkut‘s University of Technology is looking for an engineer, who will be in
Thonburi in Thailand. charge of Energy Efficiency and Climate
Change matters.
27
News from Alumni
On the CDM issues, I‘m involved on the Mr. Manoj Khadka, Nepal
design and feasibility studies on poten-
tial CDM projects, covering energy effi- Since May 2005 he is director of the Insti-
ciency, renewable energies, landfill to gas tute of Local Governance Studies (Inlogos),
projects, transport sector and reforestation an NGO working for empowering local gov-
projects – in one of them I was directly in- ernance system and support for different
volved……………………. to be continued ! development works at the central level as
well as local level.
Mr. Fernando Vega, Honduras
Major Works Performed:
In Mid 2005 went with his family to the US,
more precisely Siloam Springs, Arkansas, • Involved in team of preparing guidelines
where he joined a private university (www. for „Internalization of MEDEP into DDC
jbu.edu), to teach in the engineering divi- and other central level agencies“ for
sion and to do some research as well. In the MEDEP/UNDP.
medium term his job will involve a lot of • Involved in technical support team of
renewable energies in the form of teaching „Preparation of Urban Poverty Reduction
and project implementation in 3rd world Strategy“ organized by Municipal Associa-
countries. The long term project goal is tion of Nepal and Ministry of Local Devel-
to create a renewable energy program for opment with support from GTZ and DED.
wich they actually hired Fernando. • Coordination of other activities associated
with the institute as Comparative Study of
Mr. Ihtsham Farooq Choudhry, Pakistan CIAA, Study of Personnel Management of
Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Review of
Was employed by AREVA Energietechnik District Periodic Plan of Bhaktapur DDC,
GmbH, Division of decentralized energy Study of PPP arrangement of Electricity
systems, in Bremen, Germany in Mid 2005 and Water Supply in Municipalities etc.
(www.areva-td.com). They are working done by the Institute.
in the field of Biomass Power plants. Last • Looking after the overall financial and ad-
year the company had three contracts of ministrative management of the institute.
construction and erection of 13 MW power • Coordinating with the Board of directors
plants run by biomass (CHP) in Brazil. Sham and working as secretary of the board.
is working on project management (opera-
tion and functioning of the whole plant and Btw: Manoj got married in Summer 2005.
also different components of the plant, like
boiler, turbine etc).
PPRE 2003-04
Mr. Juan Jose Trujillo, Colombia
Mr. Ferdinand Ajamah, Cameroon
Joined the Endowed Chair of Wind Energy
at the Institute of Aircraft Design, University Wrote earlier last year:
of Stuttgart as research assistant. Juan is We are presently experiencing a very sym-
supposed to do his PhD-studies there. pathetic situation in Cameroon with respect
to the continuous rise of fuel prices. The
28
News from Alumni
29
News from Alumni
in the region is increasing steadily. So far Mr. Prashun Ratna Bajracharya, Nepal
more then 600 Rocket stoves have been dis-
tributed (see also respective article). Re-joined the Biogas Programme Nepal af-
ter PPRE. The biogas programme in Nepal
After doing a training for several months at is running smoothly. They are implement-
GTZ in South-Africa, Andreas was offered a ing Fourth Phase of the biogas programme
proper job at GTZ in October 2005. He will and with a target to construct additional
be involved in the project named above. 200.000 biogas plants all over the country
up to 2009. Last year, Biogas Programme
Earlier in 2006 he participated in a GTZ- -Nepal received Ashden Award - 2005 from
Stove-conference in Johannesburg, South- Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy-
Africa, where Andreas met other PPRE-alum- Great Britain. ‘Biogas Programme Nepal’
ni, like Ms. Anna Ingwe, Tanzania (PPRE has already been registered with the execu-
1991-92) and Samson Tolessa, Ethiopia tive board of the CDM and 180.000 biogas
(PPRE 1994-95). plants have been registered with the CDM
in its preliminary phase. World Bank is all
set to make an agreement with Nepal to
buy one million tons of carbon dioxide for
about 4.5 million dollar.
Mr. Richard Lawless, Ireland Mr. Mitra also went for a 128.8 MW wind
farm vetting for Enercon company (India)
Started working as RE-Engineer with Lah- to a site near Jaisalmer, close to the desert
meyer International GmbH in Bad Vibel, ‘Thar’, where there is already 450 MW in-
near Frankfurt in Mid 2005. stalled. The picture below was shows a
sandstorm during a his site-visit, which is
Mr. Matthieu Sarran, France common in this region.
Quit his job with Sun Master Energiesys- In early 2006 Mr. Mitra started his PhD-studies
teme in Austria late 2005 to also join Lah- under the guidance of Prof. Schmid at Univer-
meyer Int. in Bad Vibel, near Frankfurt. sity of Kassel. His PhD-Studies are sponsored
30
News from Alumni
As Energy Analyst and Project Develop- As Ph.D. Candidate of the recently imple-
ment Controller at PT. SMART Tbk (www. mented HyWindBalance-Project (see also
smart-tbk.com) Erkata informed us that in article under news from Oldenburg) at EHF
Mid 2005 his company was dealing with in the Institute of Physics at University of
a Japanese investor to start a CDM Biogas Oldenburg, Torsten visited for 4 months as
Project. If accepted Erkata will be involved guest researcher the Institute for Integrated
in this big Biogas construction project. Fur- Energy Systems (IESVic), University of Victo-
ther news to come ! ria, Canada (www.iesvic.uvic.ca).
31
News from Alumni
32
News from Alumni
Mr. Naveed Akhtkar, Pakistan His responsibilities are: advising the Na-
tional Coordination in the planning of the
After PPRE he got a job as Research Engineer program, giving some lectures about Stand
at the Chair for Materials Processing in Uni- Alone PV Systems to distribution utilities´
versity of Bayreuth, Germany, where he is technicians, and giving support to PV in-
involved in fuel cell activities and in charge stallations all over the country when it is
of building up a test station for SOFC. needed.
Is working as trainee since May 2006 in a Will start working for „Deutschen Energie
small firm in Hamburg, called Microsol So- Agentur“ – DENA – in Berlin (http://www.
larsysteme GMBH (www.SydneySolar.de). deutsche-energie-agentur.de) from 1st of Au-
The company has around 15-years experi- gust 2006.
ence in installation and service of solar ther-
mal and PV systems in Hamburg and out- He will join the International Cooperation
skirts. In August he’ll start to work for them team working in the field of CDM and Joint
within a pilot-project. Their task will be to Implementation.
assemble and test so called Maximum Re-
flector Collectors. It has a small elongated
absorber and big parabolic reflector. That
design pretend to be a low-cost alternative
to the flat plate collector.
33
News from Alumni
34
Reports from Alumni
35
Reports from Alumni
36
Reports from Alumni
Methodology
37
Reports from Alumni
The task for 2005 is to scale the Rocket our and duty to deliver German expertise.
Stove principle down to household size. We
are developing a wood burning household This is historically one of the biggest ever
stove that will compete with the charcoal projects in East Africa (for GTZ), and the ex-
and paraffin stoves. The challenge is to find citement coming along with it is of course
local materials from which the stove can be huge.
made. This will reduce the costs and it will
allow that the stoves can be build by local I will keep interested parties updated – but
producers. please be patient until Mid 2006 before ex-
pecting any further announcements. For
The Household Rocket Stove was presented further information please visit: www.gtz.
at the Malawi International Trade Fair 2005 de/international-services
in Blantyre/Malawi end of May 2005.
GTZ support for Ethiopia’s Currently I work for a small consulting com-
University Capacity Building pany CORE International in a USAID funded
project Advisory Assistance to the Ministry
Program of Energy of Georgia. Our project provides
advisory services to the Ministry in a host
By Bernhard Gläser, Germany (PPRE 1999/2000) of energy sector issues including national
energy policy reform, energy sector reform
The GTZ (German association for techni- and governance improvement, medium
cal co-operation) is assisting the Ethiopian and long term sector strategy development,
Government with their University Capacity public awareness and public participation
Building Program. methodologies to engage the public in an
informed dialog on reforms, development
The programme’s scope is to build 13 uni- of a Ministry-wide energy management
versities (!) at various locations across the information system, as well as assisting the
country. The Ethiopian government is fully Ministry in the day to day sector policy is-
funding this very ambitious project, and sues. CORE’s advisory support to the Minis-
they have allocated a considerable amount try includes assistance in the development
of money in order to meet this challenge. of new legislation to aid in implementing
reforms, development of amendments to
The GTZ is acting as a consultant within the existing energy laws, policy papers on en-
construction/engineering sector for this ergy regulatory approaches and market
project. In order to enhance skills and gen- structure, issues surrounding energy secu-
erate lasting expertise the GTZ should fur- rity of the country.
ther organize vocational training advice for
the Ethiopians. I am one out of 25 German My position with this project is called Senior
skill-upgrading experts who have the hon- Energy Expert and I‘m mostly involved with
38
Reports from Alumni
technical issues. I also manage several sub- tre for Fuel Cell Technology (ZBT)“ at Duis-
projects like: burg, Germany, just when I was concluding
* Development of a website for the Ministry my short stay at the GATE division of GTZ,
of Energy (www.minenergy.gov.ge); Eschborn in Feb. 2005. The invitation was
* Preparation of Pre-Feasibility studies for quite a surprise as I was on the verge of leav-
potential large scale projects like: 700 MW ing for India, after working for GTZ.
Khudoni HPP; 500 KV High Voltage Trans-
mission Line „South Georgia“; 450 MW Na- Well, ZBT is a young research Institute, fund-
makhvani HPP Cascade; ed by the state of NRW (Nord-Rhein-West-
* Development of a Simulation Model of falia) and the EU. It was quite interesting for
Georgian Power Sector (hourly dispatch of me to join ZBT straight away without having
power plants and financial revenue mod- to go to India and come back to Germany.
eling); Hence, I had joined ZBT in April 2005 and
* Development of Ministry MIS system am still with ZBT since then. The research
(including internal Document Forwarding work is quite interesting, challenging and
System and Database - both linked to the rewarding. The work environment is quite
Ministry website); pleasant. ZBT‘s thrust areas are gas process-
ing, auxilary power units and fuel cell stack
And any other technical issue that comes up designs. I am especially working to under-
or requested by the Ministry, like the one on stand the fuel cell system behavioural pat-
classification of Hydro Power Plants in other terns over time. My focus areas are micro
countries... and mini fuel cells. I am also interested in
high temperature PEMs coupled to biogas
Our project runs till the end of this year... processors. The high temp. PEMs (HT PEM-
Then, I will see... FCs) are an emerging technology where
high CO tolerance is possible, and the wa-
By the way, I have applied to PhD programs ter management is not an issue. HT PEMFCs
in Mechanical Engineering at several Uni- would make sense for systems coupled to
versities and waiting for their decisions. biogas processors. Well, its a long way to go,
One of them is Colorado State University but one step at a time with steady progress
with a strong Solar Energy program and So- is what I aim at. I do believe that my work at
lar Lab. It could happen that I may end up ZBT would enable me to build systems that
on a study bench again... :o) would contribute to sustainable develope-
ment.
Best regards to Oldenburg and PPRE staff!
Bidzina If any of you should be interested in project
proposals such as biodiesel, biogas coupled
systems using HT PEM stacks, feel free to
My Research at Centre for Fuel get in touch with me and we might try to
Cell Technology, Duisburg work together.
39
Reports from Alumni
40
Reports from Alumni
41
Reports from Alumni
„You can‘ta pulla thata one on me!“, replies the Italian customs agent. „Quattro meansa
four. You hava fivea people ina your car and you are thereforea breaking the law.“
The German driver replies angrily, „You idiot! Call your zupervisor over, schnell! I vant to
speak to somevone viz more intelligence!“
„Sorry“, responds the Italian official, „ He can‘ta come. He‘sa busy with a 2 guys in a Fiat
Uno.
Sent by Bahy Saad, Egypt
42
Contributed articles
1
Kenya is a rurally oriented society, with over 75% of the population living in rural areas, and approximately a third of the GNP
being produced in the agricultural sector.
43
Contributed articles
two main categories; on grid and off-grid ing demand in the short term. A total in-
demand. The latter refers to institutions and stalled generation capacity of 1,225.4 MW
households not connected to the grid using, dominated by hydropower at 55.6%, ther-
but currently using Kerosene, dry cells and mal at 32% and geothermal at 10 % supplies
lead acid batteries. electricity to the national grid. Because of
affordability to technical issues, off-grid
demand remains largely unmet. The gov-
2.1.On-grid demand ernment has for a long time focused on
grid electrification, leaving off-grid elec-
Consumption of electrical energy is domi- trification to individuals and the private
nated by the industrial sector at 63%, fol- sector. Private sector entrepreneurs have
lowed by domestic and small-scale indus- embraced this and have been servicing the
trial at 33%, while Consumption by rural electricity demand of off-grid clients via dis-
electrification customers comprises only tributed services which include small hydro,
4% of the total demand. Currently there are PV, wind and small thermal generator sets.
an estimated 68,000 customers connected
through the REP consuming an average Regarding grid electrification the govern-
140 GWh annually. Peak demand for grid ment uses the Least Cost Power Develop-
electricity is in the order of 786MW, but is ment Plan (LCPDP) to prioritize the develop-
believed to be suppressed by the prevailing ment of identified power resources based
poor supply networks and economic condi- on appraisal of their viability, before power
tions. Historical average demand growth projects are commissioned. Each develop-
rate over the past 5 years in has been 1.4%. ment is evaluated on the basis of financial,
technical, environmental and social merits.
A major shortcoming of the LCPDP is its
2.2. Off-grid demand inability to take into consideration the de-
velopment of isolated sites or load centres
Demand outside the national grid and in that are best electrified using distributed
some cases for locations proximate to the generation and that would utilise renew-
grid (<1km) is currently supplied by various able energy resources especially wind and
technologies including large decentralised small hydro.
generators, small thermal generator sets,
small hydro, photovoltaic, wind etc. Some Investments in the power sector have
of the demand is however not supplied lagged behind growth in demand and lead-
at all. It is believed that demand outside ing to stagnation in both economic and
the national grid is actually larger than on- social sectors. To effectively supply the
grid, but cannot be economically supplied current and growing demand for electric-
through grid extension. ity, key areas that need to be addressed to
increase access include:
3. Electricity Supply
• Supply of reliable, efficient, clean and
On-grid demand is currently well serviced cost-effective power
with an estimated overcapacity of 200MW, • Efficient distribution through decentral-
which is expected to be absorbed by grow- ised grids where possible and reductions
44
Contributed articles
in technical and non-technical losses in Unfortunately this noble idea was eventu-
the wider national grid ally skewed towards grid electrification,
• Increased access to electricity as a means with very little support going to distributed
for stimulating income and employment generators and grids. This supply gap has
growth; over time fuelled the proliferation of pub-
lic and private DE initiatives. To date DE is
These demands call for innovative distrib- still predominantly associated with off-grid
uted electrification approaches as well as installations.
the strengthening of supportive regulatory
frameworks.
4.1.Distributed Thermal Genera-
tors
4.Supplying Distributed De-
mand In line with its development agenda, GoK set
up seven (7) decentralised generator grids
Interestingly the Kenyan government iden- in remote towns (also district headquarters)
tified the need to electrify urban centres in across Kenya through the REP in the 1970s.
rural areas as means to curtailing the rural These isolated grids are operated by KPLC
to urban migration. For this reason the Rural and KenGen on behalf of the Ministry of
Electrification Programme (REP) was initiat- Energy. Customers of these isolated grids
ed in 1973 to expand access to electricity as pay a uniform tariff of €0.08 per kWh which
a means to promote sustainable socio-eco- is similar to that paid by other customers
nomic development of rural communities. on the national grid. These consumers are
Recommended approaches were and still therefore subsidised by rate payers on the
remain to accelerate the pace of rural elec- national grid from a “fuel levy”. Table 1 pro-
trification through grid extension, isolated vided data on the decentralised stations.
grids and off-grid projects, taking into ac-
count economic cost effectiveness criteria, These DE schemes have been faced with se-
and emphasizing productive use of power rious financial resource constraints, which
for growth and employment creation. have greatly limited generation, capacity
Table 1: Stations, installed capacity, number of connected consumers and production costs
45
Contributed articles
and network expansion at a pace consistent With the exception of the government
with growth in demand. To redress this situ- initiated decentralised projects, there are
ation, Government is seeking to privatise or scores of informal DE schemes in operation
concession the isolated systems on the ba- across Kenya with varied problems and suc-
sis of tariff price cap and a committed pro- cesses. A case study of one such project is
gramme for network expansion. As part of presented below.
the power sector undergoing liberalisation
this is expected to improve the efficiency
and quality of service.
MEP which began its operations in 1994 with a client base of 60 connections and a
heavy subsidy from GTZ currently services some 250 connections. It is operated on a
commercial basis by a management board using finances generated by sale of elec-
tricity. The rapid change in diesel prices over time has led to the price of electricity
escalating from €0.06 per kWh in 1994 to the current €0.23 per kWh. These prices while
reflecting the full cost of generation and distribution contrast dramatically with other
decentralized schemes operated by the government through the local utility KPLC
which have tariffs fixed at the national rate of €0.08 per kWh.
In spite of a very high demand for electricity, scaling up of the generation capacity and
extension of the distribution cannot be carried out effectively due to operational and
financial constraints. Operations of the scheme are currently not sustainable despite
the high tariffs charged. Given the favorable wind regime of its location, the scheme
is currently being assessed by a private investor with a view to converting it to a wind-
diesel hybrid. This is expected to reduce the cost of electricity production. Critical is-
sues that will need to be addressed include ownership structure, technical design and
operational plans.
While this case study highlights the per- through better systems management and
tinent issues faced by distributed grids use of renewable based hybrids.
outside the governments electrifica-
tion ‘projects’, the costs of operating such
schemes can be substantially reduced
46
Contributed articles
47
Contributed articles
While efforts promote and entrench the uti- • Short timescale for DE project develop-
lisation of DE technologies outlined above ment when compared to grid extension.
are not currently well coordinated, they are
nonetheless beginning to make an impact Key barriers to the development of DE in-
and are defining approaches for the imple- clude;
mentation of decentralised electricity. An
integrated strategy for the development of • Lack of awareness of the multiple ben-
DE need to be developed for it to succeed efits of DE.
and make an impact in increasing access to • Policy and Regulations for the electricity
electricity and energy services to a wider sector are oriented around centralised
section of the populace. grid connected generation.
• Relatively low price of electricity at the
5.Discussion current time driven by old large hydro
plants. These prices are lower than those
5.1.Drivers and Barriers being proposed by RE generator (wind,
cogen, PV, small hydro etc) and are there-
Until recently, DE was predominantly asso- fore a disincentive to DE project develop-
ciated with isolated sites and off-grid instal- ers
lations. However, the market is evolving and
DE is starting to make an impact in on-grid Long-term prospects for cogeneration and
applications. Key drivers include; renewable DE in Kenya are good. However,
limitations to potential growth will remain
• Liberalization of the electricity sector due to the relatively low marginal cost of
allowing more players and different ap- currently installed power generation and
proaches to electrification the built-in barriers in existing policy and
• Demand for reduce reliance on imported legislation. Power market ownership is
fuels. This coincides with current world- highly concentrated representing addition-
wide shift to address climate change al entry barriers for new technologies.
through cleaner electricity and large po-
tential for CDM projects. As outlined in 6.Recommendations
section 4.2, renewable energy in the form
of cogeneration, wind, small hydro and The following key interventions to promote
PV is beginning to cut out a niche in the DE for increased access to electricity and
future energy matrix. widespread electrification are recommend-
• The transmission and distribution system ed;
requires significant investment especially
for remote sites. DE offers an attractive a. Streamline current institutional arrange-
alternative. ments for implementation of the Rural
• With increased oil prices, the price of Electrification Programme (REP) through
electricity is expected to rise, use of re- the creation of a special purpose agency
newables are therefore expected to bring to manage the REP, including formulation
down or moderate electricity price in- of a Master Plan which will explore the
creases in the long term making decen- development of decentralised renewable
tralised schemes more sustainable. energy and limited thermal generation
48
Contributed articles
49
Contributed articles
ABSTRACT
The extraction of energy from the wind for conversion into electrical energy is a relatively new
technology in Kenya. The Wind-Diesel electricity generation system in Marsabit town is the first
of its kind in Kenya. Installed in 1988, this 200 kW Wind Turbine generator has been supplying
electricity to the residents of Marsabit town in combination with a 200 kW Caterpillar diesel
generator and three 110 kW Cummins generators. The success of this project is such that an
average of 60% of the daily electrical energy demand is supplied by the wind.
1. Introduction.
In September 1988 an
Autonomous Wind Die-
sel System, AWDS, was
installed in the town of
Marsabit. The objective
of this Belgian project
was to save fuel and to
expand the electricity
supply of the town. This
was to be done by the
additional installation of
a 200 kW Wind Turbine in
combination with a 200 Picture1: Typical scene in the dusty streets of Marsabit town, Pic
kW diesel generator. by James W.
The town of Marsabit is remotely located combined with the unavailability of the fuel
making it much cheaper to generate elec- during rainy seasons when the roads are
tricity locally rather than connecting it to made impassable.
the national grid. Prior to the installation of
the AWDS in Marsabit, the town‘s electricity In September 1987 HMZ Belgium n.v. (now
was supplied by three 110 KW Cummins die- known as TURBOWINDS1) started the de-
sel generators. These three engines could sign of the AWDS. From January 1988 up
not meet the increasing demand of the to August 1988 the complete system was
town. Because Marsabit town is located in tested at the wind farm in Zeebrugge, Bel-
the middle of the desert, fuel expenses are gium. During the tests all kinds of extreme
relatively high due to transportation costs situations had to be simulated.
1
In 1995, Turbowinds bought WindMaster Belgium‘s know-how in wind energy and took on all the engineers and technicians
involved in the design, project management, manufacturing, operations and maintenance of Wind Turbines and central supervi-
sory control systems around the globe (REF 5).
50
Contributed articles
The construction of the AWDS started in The Wind Turbine always runs when there
September 1988. This construction included is enough wind. Additionally, when the
the installation of overhead lines, the erec- electric power demand is high and the
tion of the Wind Turbine, the installation of wind is low, 1 or more diesel engines can be
the diesel generator and the interconnec- brought on line.
tion of the three components.
To start, the Wind Turbine will automati-
In October 1988 the complete system was cally start its own diesel engine to ensure
started and officially inaugurated by the enough current is available to magnetise
Belgian government and local officials. the Wind Turbine generator (field current).
Immediately thereafter, the diesel engine
is put off. During periods of low loads, the
2. System design. Wind Turbine works in parallel with one of
the 110 kW Cummins engines. Hence the
Wind Turbine only uses its sister diesel en-
The following criteria had to be met. gine as a standby start-up engine. In this
manner, loads of up to 300 kW can be serv-
· rated voltage 420/240 V ± 5% iced. As soon as the load goes over this fig-
· rated frequency 50 Hz ± 4% ure, more engines are brought on line. As a
· able to handle sudden load changes. consequence, the diesel engines wear and
· type of loads include: lighting (tubes and tear is reduced to a minimum. This start and
bulbs), radio and TV sets, electrical tools, stop procedure happens only a few times a
refrigerators, air conditioners, welding week.
apparatus.
As the wind power may exceed the load
The AWDS has to service the necessary power, the Wind Turbine can pitch its blades
power demand even when there is no wind. until the output meets the demand. This is
Therefore the size of its sister diesel engine done by means of a software algorithm in
had to be the same as that of Wind Turbine. conjunction with the blade mechanism of
The system therefore consists of a 200 kW the Wind Turbine. The software algorithm
Wind Turbine and a 200 kW diesel engine. controls the frequency, rpm‘s and power
output at the same time makes sure that
the power output is such that the
frequency stays within the 4 % limit.
This applies also in very high winds
and low load situations. Such a sys-
tem therefore eliminates the use of a
dump load which may be very expen-
sive and fragile.
3. Testing.
51
Contributed articles
tions. These tests also included situations parts of Kenya receive the harshest of the
which could ordinarily never happen in re- weather. Sparse rains and hot sun makes
ality. Most of these tests were performed in this a semi-arid area.
extremely high winds with no loads. Even in
these tests, the frequency could always be
kept between 51.5 Hz and 49.5 Hz. Follow-
ing is a summary of the tests performed.
Marsabit is located at latitude 2.4° N and The diurnal wind variations are also very
longitude 38° E. It is situated on a hilly re- impressive, providing a high potential
gion of 20-40 km diameter at an altitude of for extraction of wind energy. These are
1000-1500m. This region is surrounded by a shown in Table 2.
plain of 500-1000m. The north and eastern
52
Contributed articles
Time (Hrs) Wind Conditions The diesel generators used, the Caterpillar
and the three Cummins, are standard `off
0000 - 0600 Very High - the- shelf´ generators with the following
characteristics.
0600 - 1200 Moderate but Gusty
53
Contributed articles
54
Contributed articles
Reports indicate that fuel savings in Marsa- 1. Personal communication with Mr. Swaleh
bit town are to the tune of 18,000 litres per S. Imu, Generation Manager, Kenya Power
month [REF 2]. and Lighting Company.
Even more could be saved when more de- 2. WindMaster (Turbowinds) paper
mand would be needed during the day. The Paper availed after personal communica-
demand met by the Wind Turbine at the tion with Mr. Mohammed, Manager Mar-
time of writing this demand was 100 kW sabit KPLC depot.
with the Wind Turbine able to produce 150
kW due to the good winds. This means that 3. WindMaster (Turbowinds) brochures.
even more fuel would be saved in the future
because of the growing demand. 4. Personal communication with Mr. Mo-
hammed, Manager Marsabit KPLC depot.
5. http://www.turbowinds.com
55
Websites of interest
http://gec.jp/gec/gec.nsf/en/Pub-
lications-Reports_and_Related_ CDM Methodologies Guidebook E. Yandri
Books-CDM_Meth_Guidebook
http://gec.jp/gec/gec.nsf/en/Pub-
CDM Manual for project developers and policy
lications-Reports_and_Related_ E. Yandri
Books-CDM-Manual-2004 makers
http://www.greenjobs.com/Public/
job_detail.aspx?jobid=167
… they have a mailing list with job postings A. Antonopoulos
http://www.pvresources.com/en/
software.php
PV Sizing / simulation software - Overview K. Blum
56
List of former participants
57
List of former participants
58
List of former participants
Andriamahe-
1993-94 Olivier Donat Mr. Madagascar olivierdonat@hotmail.com
faparany
Rodrigues dos
1993-94 Rosana Dr. Brasil rosana2@uol.com.br
Santos
1993-94 Hurmuzan Kanam Senda Mr. Indonesia senda@bppt.go.id
1994-95 Lingbo († 2/’96) Cui Mr. China †
1994-95 Yanzhao Dong Mr. China
1994-95 Teka Melis Mr. Ethiopia tekamelis@hotmail.com
samson.gtz-sun.energy@telecom.
1994-95 Tolessa Samson Mr. Ethiopia
net.et
1994-95 Primo Gayle Ms. Guyana gbbest@rocketmail.com
1994-95 Myint Mu Yar Ms. Myanmar
1994-95 Gautam Satish Mr. Nepal satis_gautam@hotmail.com
1994-95 Sellahewa Raveendra A. Mr. Sri Lanka rsellah@agl.com.au
1994-95 Ntoga Julius Mr. Tanzania jntoga@yahoo.com
1994-95 Gassir Farouk M´med Ibrahim Mr. Sudan
1994-95 Ghebrehiwot Debesai Mr. Eritrea debaig@yahoo.com
1994-95 Mesfin Yohannes Mr. Eritrea
1994-95 Ksoll Michael Dr. Germany
kuntze@gmx.net
1994-95 Kuntze Björn Mr. Germany
kuntze@mastergas.de
1995-96 Negash Bereket Mr. Eritrea bereket_negash@yahoo.com
1995-96 Fraser Orville Mr. Guyana gnea@guyana.net.gy
Dr.-
1995-96 Rosyid Oo Abdul Indonesia rosyid_id@yahoo.com
Ing.
1995-96 Basnet Diwaker Mr. Nepal dbasnet@hotmail.com
1995-96 Ahmed Maqbool Mr. Pakistan maqbool_ahmed@hotmail.com
1995-96 Magpoc Godofredo Jr. Mr. Philippines gbmagpoc@napocor.gov.ph
1995-96 Maltsev Alexandre Mr. Russia
1995-96 Lin Yeong-Chuan Mr. Taiwan d01505@taipower.com.tw
1995-96 Kingu Elizabeth A. Ms. Tanzania elizakingu@yahoo.com
1995-96 Endale Geda Genene Mr. Ethiopia
1995-96 Baba Abdallah Mr. Tunesia AES@Planet.Tn
1995-96 Fuentes Enrique Mr. Chile efuentes@uta.cl
1995-96 Steinmeier Ernstjoachim Mr. Mexico
1995-96 Nikolic Milorad Mr. Germany mcnik2003@yahoo.ca
1995-96 Woelk Karsten Mr. Germany kwoelk@solvis-solar.de
1996-97 Kamberi Mirela Ms. Albania mkamberi@icc-al.org
1996-97 Orlando Perez Mr. Bolivia Operez@electropaz.com
1996-97 Celestine Anyam Awa Mr. Cameroon c_anyam@yahoo.com
1996-97 Ye Zhao Hui Ms. China zhaohui@freenet.de
hiwote.gtz-sun.energy@telecom.
1996-97 Teshome G/Tsadik Hiwote Ms. Ethiopia
net.et
1996-97 Yimer Woldetekle Nebiyu Mr. Ethiopia nebiyu.yimer@aeso.ca
1996-97 Gbagbo Joseph Kofi Nani Mr. Ghana
1996-97 Hegde Gajanana Krishna Mr. India ghegde@unfccc.int
59
List of former participants
60
List of former participants
61
List of former participants
62
List of former participants
63
List of former participants
EUREC/REMA-students
2004/05 AYMARD Caroline Ms France kro_kodile@hotmail.com
2004/05 THOMAS Denis Mr Belgium denis.thomas@gmail.com
Tristan Eugene
2004/05 LERMITTE Mr England tristan.lermitte@yahoo.com
William
2004/05 CLAUZONNIER Adrien Mr France clauzonnier@yahoo.fr
2004/05 ANSELL Duncan Peter Mr England Duncan.ansell@gmail.com
ADLER GOMES
2004/05 João Paulo Mr Portugual joaopagc@yahoo.com
DA COSTA
laurent.lecesve@gadz.org /
2004/05 LECESVE Laurent Mr France
tidjani_jah@yahoo.fr
2004/05 AVRAAMIDES Stelios Mr Cypress avraamidesstelios@gmail.com
2004/05 CORREIA Stélio Mr Portugual steliocorreia@hotmail.com
2004/05 CARRELL Justin Mr England justcarrell@yahoo.com
madaspan@yahoo.gr /
2004/05 MANTAS Panagiotis Mr Greece
Panagiotis@Manta.gr
2004/05 DIMOPOULOS Aris Mr Greece arisdem@netscape.net
STROMBONI-
2004/05 Estelle Ms France estellesp@numericable.fr2004/05
PREVOST
2004-05 THIEBAUT ROMARIC Mr France romaric251@yahoo.fr
2005/06 ADNAN Mohammad Mr. Pakistan adnankhan80pk@yahoo.com
philippe_mccracken@hotmail.
2005/06 McCRACKEN Philippe Mr. Canadian
com
2005/06 XUEREB Steven Mr. Maltese sxuereb@yahoo.com
2005/06 LOPEZ ALCALA Leodegario Mr. Mexican lopleo@yahoo.com
2005/06 SADER Hadi Mr. Lebanese hadi_sader@hotmail.com
2005/06 ROUZE Jerome Mr. French jerome_rouze@yahoo.fr
ANTONOPOU-
2005/06 Antonios Mr. Canada antonio@antonopoulos.ca
LOS
Theodoros-Theo-
2005/06 POLIZOIS Mr. Greek polizoisth@yahoo.gr
doritis
bguillot@nordnet.fr / bertrand.
2005/06 GUILLOT Bertrand Mr. French
guillot@laposte.net
MONTES DE OCA
2005/06 Luis Mr. Spanish luiticadi@yahoo.es
ARJONA
robsinglehurst@hotmail.com /
2005/06 SINGLEHURST Robert Mr. Canada
rob@singlehurst.ca
64
List of staff and useful links