M a r k e t N e w s
Clarke Energy Installs a Multi-Engine Power Plant at Kioo Limited’s Glass Bottle Manufacturing Facility in Tanzania
Posted on : Wednesday, 12th June 2019
Kioo Limited is the biggest manufacturer of glass packaging for the soft drink, alcohol and food industry in East and Central Africa. The multi-engine power plant installed by Clarke Energy has attain availability in excess of 95 per cent, with the two Jenbacher engines meeting the full, on-site power demand of the facility. A balanced power supply drastically improves product quality, compared to daily interruptions from an unreliable electricity grid.
Kioo Limited’s glass manufacturing facility started operation in 1963. The facility initialy used fuel oil for the glass melting process and the local grid for electricity requirements. As a result of an unstable grid, productivity and product quality were being highly affected on a daily basis, resulting in the decision to investigate on-site power generation.
Kioo has installed 1 x Jenbacher 612 and 1 x Jenbacher 620 into an existing building back in 2011. Increased production wants and energy demands resulted in Clarke Energy engineering, installing and maintaining a further containerised Jenbacher 420 in 2017.
The site runs 24/7, 365 days per year with an electrical demand of 5.3MW being achieved by island mode power generation. The 370 mt of glass is produced per day, with plans to upgrade output to 390 metric tonnes by the end of 2019. Once plant upgrades are set in place, increased engine output will be required at six megawatt.
Presently Kioo is the only glass bottle manufacturing facility in Tanzania. Around 60 per cent of production is exported around East Africa with 40 per cent meeting the demands of Tanzania. The company mines sand around 60-km from the site for the production of glass and employs roughly 400 permanent staff and 100 contractors.
Hani Jawamis, manager of Kioo Energy, commented, “The effect of uninterrupted power supply has been immense. Production efficiencies of mid 80 per cent are now around +90 per cent. The quality of our products has highly improved with no interruptions to the production process. This gives our customers astounding confidence.”
Source : www.africareview.com
