ELECTRICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF KABWE PROJECT

The assessment of the project’s electrical engineering faction will be considered in this article. This paper would take into account the Electrical Engineering elements for the project as outlined in the ITP. It will look into considerations such as the estimation and forecasting of required electricity, demand, and storage of required power. The investigation of renewable energy sources that can be used for the project would be another concern. Other concerns include determining the suitability of each examined alternative energy segment for the selected project implementation region. This report will further evaluate the electrical engineering specifications that are meant to show the team’s solution to the project needs. The evaluations are going to include the calculations and specifications for the report’s project.

Background Information

The project is meant to be implemented in Kabwe town, in Zambia with a total surface are of 1570 square kilometers. The kind of evaluation that has to be made in the region with regards to its optimal energy strategies, the aim of the electrical engineering faction of the project is to remove the fundamental obstacles and constraints that are severely hampering power development in the region. There has to be the consideration of the right target solution to be used for the electricity generation which aims at evaluating the environmental, demographic and the financial drawbacks.

The nation has the capability of reaching an installed capacity of 6 GW regarding the installed hydroelectric power. However, there is the need to discover the contingency plans that are needed for the hydro plants as most often, they are shut in a short time especially in the short rainy seasons. The project will require being powered by electrical energy. The need of which is to power the water evacuation and ICT project. There is no plausibility of commissioning a large load unit (motor) to evacuate the water from the source towards the city. This is because it would be technically infeasible and economically infeasible. There is, therefore, the need to embrace a project that is more environmentally sound in a manner that is consistent with the renewable energy expectations. To commission such a project, there is need to evaluate the plausible alternatives to the existent power sources in the region. The selection of the contingencies shall embark on the valuation of the projects after considering the technical feasibility of the given project.

Expansion of the current power option is a fundamental ideology. A glimpse of the current use of power sources points out the fact that the hydroelectric power plants are already commissioned with two plants currently in operation. To evaluate the needed sources, the first contingency being the thermal power plants. The merit of these being the fact that they have a large installed capacity as they have more British thermal units (BTU), in the fuel as compared to the other power plants. The disadvantages, however, are numerous. The first is the financial costs of the installation and maintenance are high. The other thing is that the plant is not consistent with the requirements of the environmental protection agency that seeks the protection of the environment and the atmosphere from the effluents such as the carbon gasses and the nitrogen oxide gasses. The thermal plants are therefore eliminated due to the economic and environmental lack of feasibility. The other option is to consider the renewable energy sources such as the wind turbines. They are however deemed expensive to maintain as they require routine checkups. The other issue is that the wind is not constantly consistent throughout the entire year.

The hydroelectric power stations are quite sufficient in support of the ICT boosters and the running of the water supply plant. They have the total energy of 180 GWh. As a matter of fact, the power generated by the plants is normally used by the utility company in the nation instead of the Kabwe area; this is due to the low population of the region as compared to the entire Zambian population. However, due to the consistent demand for the environment protection, there is a need to consider a good contingency that is made of the renewable sources of power. The best contingency that we will embark on is the solar energy that is meant to alleviate some of the pressure on the hydroelectric power plants.

Adoption of Solar Energy as alternative solar backup

The forecast for the power required is determined using the considerations below:

We first delve into the average sunshine durations of the region for the entire year. Source (Information, 2016)

As seen in the image above, there is pleasant and substantial throughout the year. However, there are seasons in the year from November to February where the sunshine levels are not as high as the rest of the periods. Cumulatively, around 5.5 kWh/m2 of energy per day is yielded. The nation also receives around 3000 sunshine hours annually. There is, therefore, the need for determining the storage of the solar energy especially in the months of peak sunshine in, May, June, July, Aug, and September.

The use of the solar technology has been developing a lot in the recent past because there are a lot of solar supplier and the fabricators that are already in operation in the country. This is important as it will ensure that there is the mere acquisition of startup equipment and there are ready maintenance and repairs from the existent solar dealing companies. This will do well to coalesce with the fact that the solar energy is less reliant on the manual labor. In other words, the technology is not as labor intensive as other technologies would generally be (Mankapi, 2011). The uptake of the program will also ensure that there are no way leaves or the need for the land negotiations as needed by the wind faction on power generation.

The other thing that makes solar lucrative is the fact that it forms part of renewable energy faction. This is what is deemed to be a profitable direction to be taken by the energy sector within the country and generally throughout the entire globe. The other issue is that the power source is non-exhaustive. It is, therefore, the most appropriate contingency plan to expand the current hydroelectric power plants. These sources can convert the natural form of energy in the environment to harness the required energy to be used in the development of the infrastructure and the pumping water through the city’s project. The other advantage is that the solar energy has fewer losses as compared to the other renewable energy sources. This is because of the wind turbines, have the mechanical and winding losses that minimize the electrical power output that can be tapped from a single wind generating turbine (board, 2015).

Demand for the nation’s requirement for the electrical energy has been on the rise in the recent past. This load order in the nation currently is within the region of 1300 MW. The solar energy on the country is also an area that has been on the rise regarding the electrical power installed capacity development (Zambia, 2015). The potential energy that can be yielded from the solar energy is the mean value of around 5.5 kWh/m2 per day. The nation also receives around 3000 sunshine hours annually (Zambia, 2015). This shows that there is the potential to venture into the solar thermal and the solar PV. More to that, the Kabwe region has to commission a transmission line of 330 kV that is meant to evacuate power at a valuation of close $ 125 million (Zambia, 2015).

Forecast of Power Required, Demand, and Storage

The calculation of the energy factions in the region report, the ICT tower that can commission that should be able to serve around a thousand users that amount to around 4 kW daily. The consumption implies that the values demanded by the project will be around 100 KW of energy for every month. We need to consider the amount of energy that can be consumed by the simple horsepower pumping machine. This is meant to supply water thrice in a day is bound to consume energy that is up to 40 kilowatts for every hour, this is while considering the fact that the unit membership in a residential is close to four people. Regarding the water distribution and the sanitation levels of the region, the system will make use of the same pump to convey the effluents to the likely destination. The projection is that the pump will consume the total of 40 Kw/h in the event there is consideration of around ten hours. In summary, the plan is meant to have close to 100 kWh to be consumed in each hour of the operation of the project. The total of around one thousand consumers:

The total energy that is required in the Kabwe region on a daily basis is considered in the evaluation below:

Taking into consideration the fact that the daily demand for power is around 22.5 GW, there is need to consider a solar energy plant that will be able to feed into the system and evacuate the power to the consumption area. The solar will be a form of distributed generation as it will be close to the load area of the project.

Storage of Power Required

While considering the storage of electrical energy, there are three options. The first is the conversion of the energy from AC to direct current to store in the Nickel Cadmium or Lithium-ion batteries. This is the storage of excess solar generated energy that can be used in the rainy and low-sunshine season. The advantage of this is that they provide an immediate backup and can be called to step in if there is an anomaly in the power system generation and distribution. The demerit is that they may be expensive to procure and that the need additional equipment to convert AC to DC power, however, this is only for the hydro generated power as the solar power is inherently dc so storage is direct. The other disadvantage is disposal waste concerns regarding environmental pollution.

The second option is to have net metering with ZESCO so that they can determine at the end of the year which is the net importer and net exporter of the power consideration. This is because, in the high solar season, Kabwe can export the excess capacity to the rest of the power system. The advantage here is that there is no additional infrastructure needed as already there exist evacuation lines that will convey power from and to the region. The demerit, however, is the fact the method doesn’t provide a suitable source of immediate backup. This is because, at the moment of power need in the Kabwe region, this might coalesce with power shortage in the region from which power is to be borrowed.

The last option is the ability to have spinning reserve in the rest of the power plants. This is not necessarily a storage solution, but it is a short-term demand meeting process. The plants such as the two hydroelectric power plants and solar plants are loaded to a value slightly lower than their installed capacity. Therefore, in the event, there is there power shortage in the area; the rest of the plants can chip in from the reserves. The advantage is that there is no additional equipment to provide backup, but the main demerit is the fact that the amount of backup that is provided by the spinning reserves is not that sufficient (contributors, 2016)

In the best compromise of the three methods, there is need consider that the Nickel or Cadmium batteries are necessary to consider that they provide large amounts of storage that is needed in the Kabwe region. This will work best with the introduction of the net metering for the power system. The advantage of using this storage measure is the ease of storage because they are in the form of direct current power. Source (Electropaedia, 2016)

As seen in the diagram above, there are various technologies that can be utilized in the determination of the effective storage technology in the Kabwe Project. Considering that the snapshot energy requirement for the ICT and the water plant is 100 Kw, there are a lot of technology of the batteries that can be used depending on how long their discharge rate is. The nickel cadmium batteries are therefore not overly suitable for the long run as they discharge within a short period (minutes). There is the need to look for the higher options such as the Lithium ion batteries that tend to improve the storage time for the energy (S, 2014).

Conclusion

In the paper, there was the need to drive the demand and the requirement of the power in the Kabwe region. It was determined that the HEP plants that were present needed alternative sources of power to drive the region’s ICT and Water project. The solar energy was identified as the most suitable method because it is renewable and the fact that it is environmentally friendly.

References

Board, E. r., 2015. Economic Regulations - Invertment in the Power Sector. [Online] Available at: http://www.erb.org.zm/content.php?viewpage=erips[Accessed 18 Jan 2017].

contributors, O., 2016. CLIMATE: KABWE,. [Online] Available at: https://en.climatedata.org/location/52812[Accessed 17 Jan 2017].

Electropaedia, 2016. Battery and Energy Technologies. [Online] Available at: http://www.mpoweruk.com/grid_storage.htm[Accessed 18 Jan 2017].

Information, W., 2016. AVERAGE MONTHLY HOURS OF SUNSHINE IN KABWE,. [Online] Available at: https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hoursSunshine,kabwe,Zambia[Accessed 18 Jan 2017].

Mankapi, L., 2011. The closure of Kabwe mine and its impact on th socio-economic transformation. [Online] Available at: http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/657[Accessed 18 jan 2017].

S, B., 2014. Elevation of Kabwe,Zambia Elevation Map, Topo, Contour. [Online] Available at: http://www.floodmap.net/elevation/ElevationMap/?gi=916095[Accessed 18 Jan 2017].

Zambia, R. o., 2015. Opportunities in the energy sector in Zambia, s.l.: s.n.