East Africa: Eaton Roots for Storage of Power Generated From Renewable Sources

Posted on : Tuesday, 29th September 2015

Power management firm Eaton is calling for adoption and use of renewable energy storage technologies in Africa as uptake of alternative energy and power rises in the continent.

During the recent East Africa Power Industry Convention (EAPIC) in Nairobi, Louis Shaffer, Eaton's Distributed Energy Segment Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa Region noted that renewable energy was a major theme at the 3-day event.

EAPIC is an annual industry event for the power and utility industries in East Africa. Other regional events are normally held in South and West Africa.

"There's a big theme about renewable energy in this conference, how to incorporate which's already happening, how to make economic for the region and how to manage it," said Shaffer in an interview.

"I came here to talk more about storage. One of the issues for renewable energy is storage because when the wind is blowing you've power but when it stops, then you've none the same way you've a lot of solar energy during the day when the sun is shining and very little at night when it's dark," he said, adding: "Due to this, storage is becoming increasingly important and the cost of storage is coming down considerably. So we're here to have discussions with people about what this means and how Africa can apply the situation."

"If you look at what is happening around renewable energy, you'll find that the cost is coming down a lot. People now have applications which they put on the roof to tap solar energy and then have power. In Kenya we even have people who're replacing their kerosene with solar in order to have power for both lighting and even charging phones as well as their PCs using the same energy."

However, the major concern for the industry, according to Shaffer, is how to manage renewable energy coupled with the fact that the industry still has very few private sector players and there are no incentives.

"The cost is coming down and in the long run, it makes sense. With storage, what I'm hoping for is for utility companies and power distributors to take charge. This would really help for power production," he noted.

He however added that concern for power producers - like KenGen - is whether they'll have the clients to purchase the additional stored power.

"When I talk to KenGen, they're like we've more than enough power and are in good shape but consumers on the other hand feel that there's a shortfall. For KenGen, the major concern is whether they'll have more costumers, big and large scale clients purchasing the additional power, who'll provide revenue fo the power. It's always the same game. You've to grow the power ahead of the need. This means showing potential investors that you've the capacity to meet their power and energy requirements before they can come in to invest by building either a factory or company," he stated.

"It's such an enabler. If you go to countries like France, Italy, Spain and others, you'll notice that an investment in power production brings business because if you want to have production then you also need to have the power for it."

Shaffer believes that power producers need to learn some lessons from the mobile industry.

"Like happened in the mobile phone industry, power producers need to understand that they need to lower the cost by bringing more power for everyone but get more users utlising their services. If they don't do it, they'll be faced with a situation whereby other people will be doing it for them which will mean losing revenue. This is what happened in other markets like Germany."

"We're a power management company and whoever wants to put power in we're always open to work with. But when private companies come to us saying they want to put solar because currently I have a grid which not steady and I use diesel as back-up and I want to reduce diesel and reduce the grid charge, then this is not good for KenGen. Ultimately if they don't do anything down the line, then people will have their own solar. But if they offer this to people and say I'll help you finance the project, then KenGen can then drive a different dynamic where they manage the power."

But this, he said, requires discussions between policy makers, financial institutions as well as power producers.

The 2015 edition of the EAPIC was attended by the region's leading power utilities, large industries and investors as well as technology and service providers who showcased their products at the exhibition, among this being Eaton Kenya.