Diesel generator sets are to be used to power Bangui, in the Central African Republic. Tunisian based EPC are set to try and fix the power problems that the city of Bangui has been facing.
Bangui is the capital city and also the largest city in the Central African Republic and has a population of 734,350 back in 2012. However, the capital city faces many issues relating to a reliable and secure electricity generation.
The project taken in by EPC is set to be funded by the Saudi Development Fund which comes under the Central African Republic, ministry of economy, planning and cooperation. Which has been contracted to TRAGADEL in Tunisia. The project will include the buying and installing of diesel generator sets and photovoltaic street lighting.
Clarke Energy are to provide four generator sets from Kohler-SDMO to TRAGEDEL. The KD3500-F generators will be used to power the national grid for the Central African Republic.
This will be the first time that Clarke Energy have worked in the Central African Republic and therefore will be an important milestone for the company. It will also be the largest diesel power plant in the whole of Africa apart from the many units of Jenbacher power generation sets which are already installed across Africa which run on gas power.
The addition of the diesel generator sets plans to add a predicted 10 megawatts of power to the country’s capital city electricity grid. This will therefore improve the living and working conditions of those who live in Bangui as they currently suffer many hours of black outs and interruptions to their power sully every day.
The power plant will be set to run at baseload or at peaking power. The electricity produced from the plant will then be transferred to the public utility grid which is managed and owned by ENERCA.
The new diesel generator sets will be a robust improvement on the current outdated hydroelectric generating plant which is currently used in the capital. The new units also offer the needed flexibility so that the heavy overhaul maintenance can be done on the hydroelectric plant.
The diesel generator sets will come in 40 feet weatherproof canopies. Meaning that they meet the strict criteria on soundproofing, ease of maintenance, performance and robustness. The containers have a base which has been specifically designed to have internal retention, therefore if a fuel, coolant or oil leak were to take place, the base of the container would stop it leaking any further.
The generator sets that are to be installed come from the ‘contenergy’ range from Kohler-SDMO. This range are easy to move around and have a simple installation method which is onto an external concrete slab taking up a relatively small amount of space.
The KD3500-F produce 2.5 megawatts of electricity, therefore four of these units will be used to reach the 10 megawatt target. The units run smoothly due to the engine’s conception and the integral vibrator isolation which is mounted between the components and skid. The engines also have a relatively low fuel consumption which is down to the high common rail injection technology used for the fuel injection and the power to weight ratio of the engine.
Clarke energy decided to choose TRAGEDEL due to their ability to manage the project well but also meeting the project specifications such as a low footprint were very important.
The SDMO package was also chosen due to the best compromise in the installation constraints, longer maintenance intervals, reliability, ease of maintenance, competitive pricing and best lead time.