BY ZEKARIAS WOLDEMARIAM
The issue of clean, affordable and renewable energy has become a hot agenda of countries throughout the world. In the same way such state of the art kind of energy source is a timely topic for many African countries. Both Dr Andrew and Mt Tella argue that Africa should pursue nuclear energy development as a long term solution for Africa’s growing demand for safe and sustainable energy.
In today’s edition, The Ethiopian Herald presents guests from two African countries. Dr Andrew Amadi, Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Renewable Association and Mr Abel Didier Tella, Director General of African Power Utilities Organization. Here is the interview with Dr Andrew Amadi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Renewable Energy Association, which is an umbrella body that promotes renewable energy in Kenya, in East Africa and Africa and globally. Enjoy Reading!
How is the situation of utilization of renewable energy in your country, Kenya?
Well, when you talk about electricity in Kenya today, over 90 percent of the electricity on the grid is coming from renewable energy sources. And it has reduced slightly to about 85 percent, because the Hydros are running low on water. But as soon as we start to get power from Ethiopia, then it will go back up to over 90 percent. But after 10pm, the grid is 100 percent, from renewable energy sources, mostly from geothermal, hydro and wind.
Just as you said, Ethiopia and Kenya have agreed for electric power hydropower expert. So how do you think will this just power interconnection between countries in East Africa would contribute to the living condition and the industrial and overall development of these countries?
I think it will really help a lot to have multiple sources of power. Because these sources of power can be able to cancel out particularly the expensive sources of generation, which is that thermal power plants that use fossil fuels, especially whether it is fuel, oil, or diesel, those are the biggest costs on the grid. So if we’re able to get 200 megawatts from Ethiopia, then we can shave off 200 megawatts of the peak demand. And we can rest three thermal power plants that will no longer be required. If we get another 100 megawatts from Uganda, we can do the same thing. And then we can equalize across East Africa to Rwanda is also running a lot on diesel generators, as in Tanzania. So I think the more that we have a mix, number one is that we are ensuring energy security, because if the rainfall is low in Kenya, we learned the lesson 20 years ago, when it’s never rained. And that is the only year in Kenya’s history that economic growth was below 0 percent in the year 2000. That was the lowest growth rate ever recorded. And we saw that you cannot depend on one source energy.
So now we have multiple sources. And we also need multiple collaborations, because our demand is not that big. But when we spread it around, it can start to grow, and it can grow horizontally in each country. And then it can grow vertically as the total demand goes up. And then as that demand goes up, for example, now we can bring 20,000 megawatts from Inga dam in the DRC. It can supply the rest of East Africa because we have established a pool that can be able to consume this energy. And then we don’t need to run at all, any fossil fuel plants. And this is feasible in the next 1015 20 years.
When we talk about efficiency, I think you and Mr. Taylor, were advocating nuclear energy, also as long as gas and hydro. So how do we explain the efficiency of nuclear and hydroelectric power, for Africa especially?
In some places, hydro power is not considered renewable, because it depends on not just the availability, but the replenishment of water in the dams. So as climate change is happening, and rainfall is erratic, we are getting less and less water. So the dams are going down, and the capacity is going down. So we can almost take them out. And when you take out your Hydros, which form like a base load, then you have a gap. You have a big gap, and you need to replace that gap quickly. So in order to be able to do so with a firm source of power, you look at what resources are available.
Nuclear has the advantage that it has no carbon emissions. Yeah, there are issues around nuclear. But in terms of an energy source, it will not. There are carbon emissions in the production of uranium in the process. But those are embedded carbon not in that direct generation of energy. And I think that is where the challenge is, if Africa starts to industrialize, if Africa starts to put steel plants and to put all of these very heavy industries, we don’t have them. Maybe South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco may have that. We have to look at how much power they’re consuming look at textiles in Vietnam, they need 100,000 megawatts, double the capacity of South Africa, when you reach that level of production, you will need to have a firm source of power, because you cannot be able to run it on intermittent sources. And even intermittent sources work when there is a source of power.
So we can be innovative with our Hydros, we can put solar to pump the water back during the day, so that we use solar during the day. And we also use solar to pump water so that we have electricity at night, then it can become a renewable cycle. But nuclear has the advantage that it has a very low operating cost. That you will buy uranium, it’s sold by the ground, but you use very little uranium to produce a lot of electricity. So that will bring down the costs when you do the total life cost analysis. It might be high, but it’s almost like insurance, that you will have the power when you need it. Because some of the other sources of power, like geothermal is excellent.
But it’s not available everywhere. It’s available in Kenya, in Ethiopia, along the Great Rift Valley. But countries that don’t have access to geothermal they need to get power from somewhere. And it’s a question of harm reduction in the world that we are in now, if Africa develops on a carbon path; there is no hope for the planet. So nuclear can mitigate that it can give Africa the power to develop without the pollution. It has its risks, but I think the safety issues have been addressed. And it also has the component that a lot of the uranium is coming from Africa anyway. So there is also a legitimate question of why should we not use the resources that we have, we also want to develop. It is not the ideal solution. But it is also not an ideal world. So we look at what works best.
In addition to generating power, I think as you mentioned, the distribution of power also needs efficiency. So what do you think is the challenge in distribution of power? I think the main challenge is, specifically the public procurement systems, the public procurement systems are in modern terms, they are outdated. And they are highly inefficient, and highly ineffective. And to be honest, they are a channel for corruption. So the business model of utilities has been, you have a guaranteed source of revenue, they don’t make their money by making profit, they make their money through supplying the source of revenue at a high cost. And then that increases the cost to the consumer, which the consumer has no choice, because you will find that most of the utilities are monopolies.
So I would say do what we did with telecommunications. Today, everyone in Africa has a smartphone. All of it is private sector. If you broke the private sector into transmission and distribution, in three years, they can sort out that loss. And it’s very simple. The inefficiencies of the transformers are bought through public procurement. The public procurement system is rigged in favor of certain people. They buy cheap transformers, and they build it at a high cost. And this is public information; we have a cabinet minister and managing Director of the utility who are wanted in the UK in Jersey for money laundering from the sale of transformers. That is the point of loss.
Today, modern utilities do not buy transformers, they contract a company that manufactures efficient transformers, and they replace an entire network. And when they replace it with efficient transformers, the losses are reduced. When the losses are reduced, you’re collecting more revenue for the same power. So before adding any new power, it’s like if you have a bucket and there’s a big hole, and you want a lot of water, you don’t add more water, you fix the hole first. And that will take political courage. And I think that is sometimes lacking in our system, not because people don’t understand, but because the people that benefit from that system don’t want to change it. So they will make all kinds of excuses around it. But for me, I look at efficiency. And at the end of it, you can’t get away from it.
And the first recommendation would be monitor measure, at the substation, measure each transformer measure from the transformer to each consumer unit, or even go a step further and measure the appliances. Because today, you can do that, when you have that kind of a system, then you’re able to even deal with your intermittent supplies, you can direct your excess wind power to water pumping, at night, you can be able to channel excess power after peak to electric vehicle charging, you can stabilize the grid by removing the fluctuations into storage. So there are very many innovations that can happen with the technology that we have today. If we’re only serious about applying it now the challenge is that efficiency is not intuitive. We don’t, it is not natural, especially in our culture in Africa, they don’t blame us because we have abundance, and we have a lot of everything. But in places where they don’t have, they have to see how to make use of that.
Now we have been forced to become efficient, because we don’t have resources. So when we have this huge resources that I did the calculation, the losses that the utilities making per hour is close to $100,000 every hour round the clock that is just generated and not sold. So that should be a big concern. That should be the number one parameter. If you were to say, whoever is in charge of utilities, losses that you have to reduce those losses, do whatever you want, but you have to bring it down. If you give that kind of an incentive, then you would see the losses coming down. But for as long as they’re able to get away with it by transferring that cost to the consumer. Then that becomes the death knell and we will not develop if we continue with that approach. Luckily, our industries don’t exist. So we can create them we can design them, but we have to be able to think at it. Think from an efficiency point of view.
Thank you very much
You are most welcome
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2023
