The Kinyerezi 1 Gas Plant will supply electricity directly to factories along Nyerere Road, in Dar es Salaam to boost the firms’ operations with reliable power delivery.
The 150MW dual power plant is expected to start pumping 33kilovolts (Kv) electricity to a substation along Nyerere Road near Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA). Tanesco Projects Manager, Mr Simon Jilima, said the aim is also to improve the quality of electricity supplied to the industries along those areas and increase output.
“The plant, apart from supplying 33Kv to Nyerere Road, will also supply 220Kv to the national grid,” Mr Jilima said during the tour by US assistant secretary of fossil energy.
The trial runs are expected to start next month ahead of commissioning of the plant, which operates both jet fuels (JetA1) and natural gas, in August this year.
“We will start with fuel but later after the gas reaches the plant switch to gas as well,” Mr Jilima said.
According to the project manager, the plant will later be upgraded to combine cycle where heat produced by turbine exhausts will generate electricity by boiling water and the steam produce power.
Experts said the combine cycle, depending on the source of fuel to run the turbine, can increase power generation by between 25 to 30 per cent.
GE Tanzania Regional Sales Manager, Global Growth operations, Araf Sykes, said the GE turbine plant is equipped with are single cycle but could be upgraded to dual cycle.
“These machines are capable of both. We will upgrade them in due cause to be used in combined cycle power generation,” Mr Sykes said.
He said they are capable of producing 40MW on average but once upgraded to dual cycle would produce 80MW. Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI), Director of Policy and Advocacy, Mr Hussein Kamote said availability of relatively stable power was the reason behind good exports for the first half of 2014/15.
The manufacturing sector is growing steadily in Tanzania with figures showing the growth has increased from 5.5 per cent in 1998 to 7.7 per cent in 2013 due to increase in industrial production particularly beverages, cement, iron and agricultural processing.
The Kinyerezi 1 gas plant was expected to be completed in March this year but due to unforeseeable reasons faced some delays.
Daily News
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