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GTZ HERA Household Energy Programme - News from Boiling Point 47 - November 2001
This strategic planning conference, with all member states invited, marked the official start of the regional household energy project PREDAS (Programme Régional de Promotion des Energies Domestiques et Alternatives au Sahel). Activities had been instigated at the beginning of the year by the CILSS (Comité permanent Inter États de Lutte Contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel). Consequently high-rank officials from Burkina Faso ministries, and representatives from the CILSS from the donor countries, were present at the opening and closing sessions (Figure 1). PREDAS is founded on the results of its predecessor; Energie Domestique Sahel (PED Sahel), which had been financed by Germany. It continues the latter’s broadly acknowledged participatory approach. Unforseen cancellation of several flights posed initial problems, but nevertheless, 27 participants from eight of the nine member states of the CILSS (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Chad, Cape Verdi Islands, Gambia) attended. Delegates from GTZ and the European Commission paved the way for further PREDAS activities in the Sahel, and went home satisfied with what they had achieved. Prior to the meeting, national delegates and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations, in the household energy sector, had met In Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, to establish strategic plans for the programme, and to co-ordinate ways of working between regional and national level. Currently the regional office in Ouagadougou comprises the PREDAS coordinator, Mr. Elhadj Mahamane Lawali, his collaborator Mr. Hamadi Konandji, and the office staff. PREDAS is designed to assist the CILSS member states in organising the sustainable provision and rational use of household energy by Sahelian communities, with special attention to avoiding negative impacts on the environment. The relations between the regional and national level are based on the principles of partnership, subsidiarity, and competition. [top] [end]Piloting national committees will direct PREDAS activitiesAfter three days of intensive group and plenary work it was agreed that all PREDAS activities will report to the respective ministries in charge of household energy, as institutional focal points. A steering, or pilot,national committee will be made up of: government officials; members of the civil society; the private sector; and the development partners. They will each be assisted by a technical team, with a national moderator at its head who will be a representative of the ministry. Active links with the national representative of the CILSS are to be established. Based on a close study of the existing household energy policy in the country, the steering committee will adopt and evaluate the national programme. The technical team will assist in the dialogue between PREDAS and national stakeholders, submitting proposals for household energy, and coordinating and activating PREDAS nationally.
The CILSS executive secretary, Mr. Musa Mbenga, emphasized the importance of providing the Sahelian population with household energy. He expressed his gratitude to Germany and the EU for financially supporting the search for sustainable solutions in this respect. The leader of the Burkina Faso office of the GTZ, and the German ambassador confirmed Germany’s promise of supporting PREDAS in the coming years. Representing the Ministry for Environment and Water, Mr. Cyrille Kabore reminded the audience of the diverse pressures that are put on natural resources. The urban populations’ demand for fuelwood was a major contributor to the fuelwood crisis, he said. As a result of the workshop, the way is marked out for achieving the integrative goals of PREDAS in the CILSS countries. It is now the responsibility of to the participants to communicate the outputs to their different national stakeholders and, as well as their involvement in the resulting technical assignments, to make the aims and rationale of PREDAS broadly known in their countries.
[top] [end]IntroductionThe following project approach is a result of the bi-lateral Technical Co-operation Project ‘Support of the Household Energy Sector’ (Projet Sénégalo Allemand Combustibles Domestiques – PSACD) between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Senegal, which has been active since 1996. One of the project activities, an energy master plan, is focused on the household sector in the town of Kaolack (see Boiling Point No. 43, Autumn 1999). The master plan proposed the carbonisation and briquetting of groundnut shells from industrial processing plants as the most effective measure to improve the household energy situation in Kaolack. NOVASEN, a private company from Kaolack (Nouvelle Valorisation d’Arachide du Sénégal) has, in the meantime, decided to install such a plant and integrate it into its existing groundnut processing plant.[top] [end]Starting pointWith groundnut production of up to one million tonnes per year, Senegal is one of the world’s major producers, and has the largest export market, with 80% of its total production going for export. The groundnut products exported include: groundnuts for eating; groundnut oil; and groundnut pellets as a fodder, made from groundnut cake. The town of Kaolack, the provincial capital of the Kaolack province, lies in the centre of the groundnut growing region and has two groundnut processing plants with a combined capacity of 250,000 tonnes per year.In 1999, NOVASEN started production in a newly installed plant in the industrial zone at Kaolack harbour. NOVASEN uses a modern press facility, which yields 92% of oil in one process from the groundnut kernel (conventional procedures require two stages). The new process is significantly more energy efficient, thus NOVASEN does not need to burn groundnut shells to generate the energy needed for the plant, as in conventional groundnut processing.
The industrial briquetting plant is expected to produce about 3000 to 4000 tonnes of high-quality biocoal per year, with 33% efficiency, for the local charcoal market at Kaolack or other urban centres in Senegal. At present, the 360 000 tonnes of charcoal which are consumed each year in Senegal are produced locally in traditional earth kilns, eroding Senegal’s forest resources. According to official estimates, between 50 000 and 80 000 ha of forest cover are lost annually on account of charcoal production. The planned NOVASEN project not only constitutes a very effective rational use of energy in the industry, but will also make an important contribution to the protection of natural resources in Senegal. In traditional charcoal kilns, with only 17% efficiency, some 18 000 tonnes of wood would be needed to make 3000 tonnes of charcoal – this amount of wood can be saved every year through the planned NOVASEN carbonisation and briquetting plant. [top] [end]The NOVASEN-plant in KaolackThe plant consists of two large former harbour storage buildings (Figure 1). In one of the buildings, the groundnut kernels are prepared, while the other one hosts two conditioners(rotary hearth furnaces), four screw presses, and a pelletising device, as well as a storage place for groundnut cakes.Adjacent to the buildings, NOVASEN has a large storage area which can receive 6000 tonnes of groundnuts. Each conditioner supplies two horizontal-axis screw presses (Figure 2), with up to 100 tonnes per day of raw material. With 300 working days per year, the annual capacity of the NOVASEN plant amounts to 60 000 tonnes. In 1999 and 2000, the plant operated for about 200 days and produced between 35 000 and 42 000 tonnes of groundnut oil per year. The shells constitute about 25% of the total groundnut weight. NOVASEN has a shelling plant with a daily capacity of 90 tonnes; the same amount of shelled groundnuts is brought from two other shelling plants operated by NOVASEN elsewhere in Kaolack – these plants prepare whole groundnuts for export. Current processing at NOVASEN, therefore, annually leaves about 10 000 tonnes of groundnut shells as an unused byproduct. From this residue, about 4000 tonnes of biocoal briquettes per year will be produced. The principal product of NOVASEN is groundnut oil, which is produced without chemical additives, and is therefore highly valued, especially on the European market. The oil yield is about 42% of the weight of the whole groundnut. The market price, at present, is about US$ 800 per tonne of oil. [top] [end]Energy balance at the NOVASEN plantThe plant is connected to the national grid through a 500 kW transformer. However, since the electricity supply is, at times, unreliable, and the nominal power requirement of the plant is about 600kW, NOVASEN installed a 1MW diesel generator in 1998. This generator provides around 14 MWh and uses about five tonnes of heavy fuel per day. For the conditioners, where the groundnuts are prepared for the screw presses, large amounts of process heat are needed. The energy is generated in a modern, heavy fuel-fired boiler, which consumes about 1.5 tonnes of fuel per day. The plant has two fuel storage tanks with a total of 20 tonnes capacity.On average, the plant uses about 1300 tonnes of heavy fuel per year. This gives a specific energy consumption per tonne of groundnut oil of 90 kg heavy fuel or 900 kWh per tonne (calculated with a thermal efficiency of 33%). After introducing the carbonisation and briquetting plant, the NOVASEN plant would require little or no fossil fuel. The flue gases of the pyrolysis process will be used as a fuel to drive special gas engines, while the pyrolysis oils will replace the burning of heavy fuel for process heat. Assuming biocoal briquette production of 500kg per hour (of which around 50 kg is binder), a preliminary calculation gives about 100kg of pyrolysis oil (calorific value: 6000 kcal/kg) and flue gases for a continuous generation of around 600 kW equivalent. Careful design and integration of the carbonising retort and briquetting plant into the existing oil extraction plant could reduce the fossil fuel needs of the NOVASEN plant to zero.
[top] [end]Preliminary economic figuresBoth the market value of biocoal production and the avoided fuel costs are factors in the economic evaluation of the planned biocoal scheme. The retail price for charcoal, in Senegal at present, is about US$0.15/kg, while the wholesale price, on average, amounts to about US$ 0.1/kg. Thus, the annual production of 4000 tonnes of biocoal represents a market value of US$ 470 000 per year. Considering that about 1000 tonnes heavy fuel could be substituted through utilizing flue gases and the burning of pyrolytic oil (condensates), an average of about US$195 000 can be saved every year.Even though detailed investment costs are not currently known (first estimates amount to approximately US$ 1.75 – 2.5 million), it is estimated that the biocoal installation will have a relatively short pay back period. Calculations based on installation costs of US$ 2.2 million, a plant life of 15 years and an interest rate of 12 %, the production costs per kilogramme of biocoal amount to between US$0.035 and US$0.08 – well below the current whole sale price. Thus, the proposed project approach will have economic benefits, as well as improving the energy efficiency of the plant and protecting the natural resources in Senegal. [top] [end]Project implementationAs a first practical step, NOVASEN is looking for a European partner with practical experience of operating carbonising and briquetting plants. The exact nature of the partnership is, at present, open for discussion. However, the major interest of NOVASEN is not so much a financial engagement of the partner company, but a practical role in the introduction of the new technology, i.e. a know-how transfer for the everyday operation of such plants. The first negotiations NOVASEN held with financing institutions have shown they are very interested in such a project. Therefore, NOVASEN is assuming, for the time being, that the financing of the project may not pose insurmountable problems.After identifying a partner, technical details of the process have to be discussed, and technical and economic documents elaborated and presented to potential financing institutions (these are called bankable documents). For this, support through the PSACD and its consulting engineer is planned. These documents are to be presented to national and international financing institutions, and various financing schemes are to be discussed. At the same time, through contacts with potential equipment suppliers, the technical details of the plant and the scale of investment required will be analysed in more detail. As a further step, a tender procedure for the equipment is planned; the equipment manufacturer might be invited to join the project as a partner. Through this mechanism, long-term support for the operation of the plant could be gained. It is anticipated that some of the equipment installed might be procured locally in Senegal – discussion on these subjects are still at an early stage. If this project approach proves successful, further NOVASEN plants may be converted to biocoal production. In addition, other oil extraction plants in Senegal might contemplate such a conversion. For these reasons, the pilot project has an impact beyond the regional importance of Kaolack, and as such, it has already been brought to the notice of the Senegalese government, non-governmental organisations and private companies. [top] [end]Download the original article GTZ news - Boiling Point 47 edited by Cornelia Sepp and Andre Seidel (142 KB)[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 47: Household energy and enterprise
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