Page 11 - AfrElec Week 03 2021

AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec

Kenya Power targets 55,000 SME customers

KENYA KENYA Power is to install smart meters at 55,000 Scaling up Renewable Energy Programme.
customers in the small and medium enterprise In case of any outage, the smart meters are
(SME) sector across the country by June funded able to communicate directly with the company’s
by a KES1.25bn ($11mn) grant from the World national contact centre, which facilitates imme-
Bank. diate resolution and enhances efficiency, as the
The roll-out is part of the Kenya Electric- Kenya Power teams are alerted promptly. Addi-
ity Modernisation Project and will feature the tionally, the smart meter also sends a notification
installation of advanced metering infrastruc- to the customer via SMS.
ture that will facilitate two-way communication “These combined benefits of error-free data,
between Kenya Power and the customer. prompt network problem identification and
The Kenya Electricity Modernisation Project audit of energy consumption will go a long way
was approved by the World Bank in 2015 to sup- in enhancing service delivery to our customers
port the government’s last-mile goal of scaling in the SME sector,” said Kenya Power managing
up electricity access as well as providing better director and CEO Bernard Ngugi.
quality electricity services. “We believe that the advanced metering tech-
The World Bank said it would contribute nology will further enhance customer satisfac-
$457.5mn to the project, which includes a credit tion based on the visibility and prompt detection
of $350mn from the International Development of power usage and also reduce technical losses
Association, an IDA guarantee of $200mn and a which are key to ensuring reliable and quality
grant of $7.5mn from the Strategic Climate Fund supply of power,” Ngugi said.™
Lake Turkana wind farm to use AI

to improve performance tracking

KENYA AI service provider Clir Renewables has expertise in support of LTWP as it realises the
announced a partnership agreement with Ken- full potential of this project and the region’s
ya’s Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) that will incredible resource, both in terms of energy gen-
enhance wind farm performance tracking. eration and resulting returns – a share of which
Clir Renewables’ cloud-based AI platform we are delighted to see has been committed to
provides asset managers and owners with tools the company’s corporate social responsibility
to maximise annual energy production. arm, the ‘Winds of Change Foundation’.”
Founded in early 2017, Clir’s proprietary Clir’s team will use the analysis to compare
algorithm cleans and analyses ingested data to individual asset performance at a project, port-
provide insights. folio and industry level, with insights shared
Kenya has committed to meeting a growing with all project stakeholders via Clir’s reporting
demand for electricity with 100% renewable function.
generation, in order to bring down both national “We are committed to making sure this
emissions and electricity costs. project produces beyond our expectations,”
The wind farm is now operational, and said Wellington Otieno, chief technical officer,
LTWP has turned its focus on ensuring that it is LTWP.
able to take full advantage of this resource. “With Clir, our team of local technicians
With the usage of machine learning-driven will be supported with the most up-to-date
analysis, Clir will be able to see through resource digital tools and analytics to target operations
fluctuation and identify any instances of under- and maintenance and cut unnecessary asset
performance and their causes, the company downtime.
claims. “With our turbines performing at their best,
David O’Hare, director Europe, at Clir said: we will be in a position to supply Kenya with
“Lake Turkana is a particularly unique project – consistent, low-priced, green energy.
it’s the first of this scale in Africa and has been “We are pioneering wind energy generation
developed to take advantage of some of the best at scale in Africa, and look forward to working
conditions for consistent energy production. with Clir to fully optimise performance and
“Having worked across a number of large- show the rest of the continent, and indeed the
scale, unique projects around the world, we are world, what green energy possibilities there are
keen to leverage our wide-ranging experience to here.
assess Lake Turkana’s current performance and “Our hope is that LTWP will encourage many
potential gains. more wind energy farms in our continent as we
“We are delighted to provide access to our work towards protecting our environment.™
industry-leading analytics and the team’s global

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