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Power woes a global issue
05/02/2008 10:59 - (SA)
Michael Hamlyn
Cape Town - A study carried out by a team from Oxford University last year reckoned that there is a global shortage of electricity of 40 gigawatts (GW). Looking ahead the team suggested that the shortage will grow and keep growing until it hits 200GW in 2015.
Until then, according to Andy Walker Africa business development manager of Aggreko, a company that hires out generating plants, the answer could be to rent your own power
station.
Walker told an audience at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday, that with the current mining boom, the demand for power is growing, but power station equipment is aging, and becoming less efficient.
"Everybody is trying to build power stations," he said. That impacts on delivery times. "Delivery for turbines used to be three months. Now it's two years."
Rent a power station
Aggreko hires out power stations from as small as one megawatt to 200MW. The company also supplies transformers, switchgear and cable, and its staff are on site 24 hours a day.
Each one-megawatt unit comes in a mobile 20ft container, and can be linked to a 22-kilovolt transformer. It is diesel powered. "They are like Lego blocks. You just plug and play."
He said the company has 6 000 such generators. They can be tied into a grid or a power system.
"They can tie into any location," he said. "They are very advanced, silent and containerised. You have no capital expenditure, and you can rent them for as long as you like."
- I-Net Bridge
- I-Net Bridge (Business)
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