London – UK company Havana Energy Ltd - part of the Esencia Group - has teamed up with Zerus SA, a company linked to the Ministry of Sugar, to develop a pilot 30MW power plant at Ciro Redondo Sugar Mill, about 400km from Havana, and as a second stage four further power plants. Contact online >>
London – UK company Havana Energy Ltd - part of the Esencia Group - has teamed up with Zerus SA, a company linked to the Ministry of Sugar, to develop a pilot 30MW power plant at Ciro Redondo Sugar Mill, about 400km from Havana, and as a second stage four further power plants.
Cuba''s ministry of sugar and National Electricity Board have a strategy to increase power generation in all its operating sugar mills to decentralise the grid and provide power generation in areas which have weaker supply today.
"Bagasse is the fibrous residual left after cane crushing. In Cuba it is possible via the sugar mills and bagasse based power plants to generate up to 40% of the energy needs of the country today".
Andrew Macdonald, director of Havana Energy, who has been working in Cuba for the past seven years, said: ´Our Cuban colleagues have a deep understanding of the renewable sector, they have already registered CDM projects and have pilot projects in most areas – hydro, solar, waste, etc.".
Last November, a mission with academics from Scotland visited Cuba, supported by the SDTI and Havana Energy. The scope of the visit was to primarily investigate renewable energy crops, primarily a shrub called Marabu that has invaded over 1 million hectares.
Julian Bell from the Scottish Agricultural College, commented: "The intended model of bagasse to produce electricity in Ciro Redondo makes total sense and even better if the brushy wood Marabu can be utilised and therefore also converting more land to agricultural use´
The experts noted the possibility of utilising this shrub as a secondary biomass for the local power plants and that it has an interesting export potential. Marabu is currently been tested in laboratories in the UK to investigate its properties.
Martin Tangley, director of Biofuel Centre, said the sugar mill/biomass plant process is one of the most efficient sources of renewable energy in the world, the next stage should be incorporating biofuels from the other waste products from the sugar cane."
Peter Hall, professor of energy storage from Strathclyde University with Havana Energy will launch in the spring 2011 a university study project into the design process within the sugar industry.
The state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE) is responsible for supplying electricity to the Cuban population and the national economy. This is a complex process in which more than 50,000 workers intervene, highlighted Jorge Armando Cepero Hernández, UNE’s general director during a recent press conference. The executive explained that electrical energy is produced with a generation fleet that has more than 6,500 MW installed (Figure 1).
1. Current Cuban energetic matrix. Source: UNE
“Of these, 480 MW of combined cycle technology that uses the accompanying gas produced from the extraction of national crude oil as a fuel,” he said. This is the cheapest generation in the country and its facilities treat the gas, which is used then for food cooking in some regions of Havana city.
Another important component of the National Grid (NG) is the 2,498 MW coming from thermal generation that produces approximately 60% of the country’s generation. “This is a technology that has more than 36 years of exploitation on average, which requires a great effort to maintain its availability,” explained Cepero Hernández.
Likewise, there are about 2,700 MW in both fuel and diesel motors distributed throughout the country. “This generation was installed as of 2005 as part of the Energetic Revolution, which is of vital importance in the confrontation of weather events in order to restore the electricity supply to the people as quickly as possible,” he said.
Cepero Hernández announced that since 2019 the country has relied on the contribution of three thermal power barges, with a total capacity of 200 MW, from the Turkish company Karadeniz Holding, which use low-quality fuel and have high operational availability, which makes it a generation that is economically feasible for the NG.
“And we must mention the generation that will undoubtedly be the future and the fundamental basis of the country’s generation: renewable sources (RS). At present, they produce 4.5% of the total generation, but is estimated to be the sector with the highest growth because it reduces the consumption of fossil fuels and has a positive environmental impact,” said Cepero Hernández.
In this sense, the UNE’s vision is to accelerate the incorporation of RS into generation and gradually reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, which is currently close to 5 million tons, of which close to half is imported that is expensive for the country. The purpose is to achieve 100% generation from this RS in the future.
“This purpose also contributes to the country’s energy independence since 53% of the current generation is accomplished with imported energy sources. To optimize the cost of the MWh generated with the available sources, the National Load Office (NLO) carries out a daily planning and scheduling of the generation using computer tools developed in Cuban universities, and that guarantee to achieve this objective and operate the national electric system in a safe manner,” said Cepero Hernández.
In another moment of the press conference, the general director of the UNE explained that to cover the demand, all generation sources are needed, and “these are incorporated to the extent that the national consumption requires, and is carried out from the most economical way to the least economical.”
He also said that the NLO is the one that governs the entire system and delivers the electric energy depending on the demands. “It is decided when, how, and which places need more or less electricity,” he explained.
“The night peak is the time of the day when diesel is consumed the most, so we suggest to the entire population to take measures in order to control electricity consumption, because it affects the family economy and causes the country to spend high amounts of foreign currency for the purchase of diesel fuel,” emphasized the executive.
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