adminA local energy services firm, Energy and Information Logistics (EiL) has acquired funding from German bank KfW to establish a 300 megawatt virtual power station to assist the country utilise available energy efficiently.
Referred by some as the ‘internet of power”, virtual power stations (VPS) tap into existing grids and specifically tailor supply and demand for a customer, maximising value for both the end user and supplier using software based systems.
Zimbabwe is battling a power crisis as demand outstrips supply which is impacting on industry productivity as well as other sectors of the economy.
Experts in the power sector say that the cost of energy efficiency is about $200 per kilowatt saved compared to about $2 000 per kilowatt produced from new power plants.
While it could not be immediately established how much the company had secured from the
German bank, EiL managing director Francis Masawi confirmed to New Ziana that the firm had obtained funding to invest in setting up the virtual power station.
“By investing, installing, operating and maintaining equipment to locally generate reactive power at an electricity user’s factory, EiL will save power being lost to the atmosphere due to the heating taking place in the transmission and distribution wires of ZETDC as power moves from Kariba and Hwange to electricity users’ factories,” Mr Masawi said.
“The saved power is what is being referred to as a virtual power station and can be used by those users who might have been load shed.”
VPS, which is a new concept in Zimbabwe, uses what are referred to as “negawatts,” which is power generated by someone else but is being lost.
Such power stations are being used in developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.
“The 300MW VPS will make available to Zimbabwe more energy than what the Kariba South Power Station expansion project will produce,” he said, adding it would also create employment as it is being run by Zimbabweans.
Mr Masawi said EiL had developed its own VPS mechanism which had been forwarded to the United Nations for approval. — New Ziana.
Online Reporter