Eaton, a global power management company says its micro grid technology will address the energy poverty in Nigeria and indeed Africa.
The company observes that in Africa, millions are still without modern energy services stressing that microgrid technology is increasingly being considered as a solution to address energy poverty.
Seydou Kane, managing director, Africa, Eaton said “This microgrid system will enable a more intelligent and more cost-effective operation of our facility and serves as a concrete case for the application of this technology in both commercial and industrial use”.
Speaking at the inauguration of a new microgrid at its manufacturing site in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kane observes the microgrid includes the first deployment of Eaton’s energy storage system, xStorage, in Africa and is geared towards enabling the site to become self-sufficient from an energy consumption perspective, thereby relieving pressure on the national electricity grid and infrastructure in the area.
“The opening of our Wadeville microgrid system is an important step for Eaton in Africa. This installation is a demonstration of our commitment to develop sustainable access to energy in the region,” The first of its kind microgrid in South Africa uses second life electric vehicle batteries to increase resilience, provide higher levels of energy independence, support grid stability and reduce energy costs by up to 40 percent. A similar sized microgrid could provide energy for 230 community homes.
He further opine that ageing infrastructure and grid reliability continue to be issues across the region adding that improving grid reliability will improve business continuity, minimize business losses and improve economic growth.
According to the World Bank Group Enterprise Surveys, African manufacturing enterprises experience power outages on average 56 days per year, lasting 5.7 hours on average. These outages result in firms losing an average of 6 percent of sales revenues, but losses can be as high as 20 percent where back-up generation is limited. As a result, universities, hospitals, corporations and local communities are now considering microgrids as a way to increase power reliability and availability to meet their critical demand.
Eaton’s expertise in power systems engineering, circuit protection and engineering services, has enabled the creation of microgrid technologies to improve power system resiliency. Microgrid customers can increase energy resiliency and sustainability, reducing energy-related costs as well as minimizing losses resulting from downtime due to power outages.
“We believe we should not only have a role to help deliver access to reliable, sustainable energy, but that we should be demonstrating the benefits that our technology brings by using it ourselves,” said Kane.
The new microgrid system demonstrates Eaton’s unique xStorage portfolio of energy storage solutions that give access to safe, reliable and sustainable energy. The use of second-life lithium-ion batteries from Nissan expands the useful life of electric vehicle batteries, reducing the need to use additional resources from the planet to produce new batteries.
