FollowOver 60 per cent of Centrosolar solar photovoltaic (PV) modules are used outside of Germany. The Hamburg (Germany) based company has now delivered PV modules for an SOS Children’s Village in Mombasa, Kenya.
With over 300 modules, the solar power plant is the third largest system in East Africa. The project dates back to the ‘Renewable Energies Export Initiative’ of the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology (BMWi).
The 60-kWp plant in Mombasa takes over the power supply in the SOS Children’s Village.
PV plant generates electricity for the operator’s own needs, feeds surplus into the public power grid
The execution of the project was a joint German-Kenyan effort: Centrosolar delivered 312 modules of the S-Class Excellent series with a total output of 60 kilowatt peak (kWp). The installation on site was carried out by the partner company Asantys Systems together with the Kenyan cooperation partner African Solar Design.
The plant supplies some of the power required by the SOS Children’s Village and makes the 130 children currently living in the village a bit more independent from the numerous supply bottlenecks that are typical for Kenya’s overburdened power grid. The plant also supplies some of the electricity to schools, where over 500 students from the area are taught.
The type of power usage in the plant is entirely unprecedented. The solar plant is the first plant in Kenya not only to generate electricity for the operator’s own needs but also to feed its surplus into the public power grid. So-called net metering ensures that the electricity meter in the Children’s Village counts backwards whenever the system feeds power into the grid, thus reducing energy costs.
Developing solar energy in one of the sunniest countries in the world
“Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya. However, the power supply is very unreliable and locally generated electricity is very expensive. In one of the sunniest countries in the world, developing solar energy with appropriate infrastructure is the logical solution,” explains Frank Heise, Sales Director of Stand Alone Systems at Centrosolar.
The worldwide SOS Children’s Village Organisation plans to gradually convert additional children’s villages to renewable energies and thereby contribute to developing an environmentally friendly and reliable power supply. The inauguration of the plant in Mombasa is expected to take place in July 2011.
