The sub-Sahara focused energy solutions provider was playing a role of a lead financial and technical investor in this project.
GLAE being a part of a development consortium comprising of Uganda’s Xsabo Power limited which has been working to put in the 24MW Kabulasoke Solar Power Park in association with the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited.
Along with the official commissioning of the Kabulasoke Solar Power Park, which is the first of its kind in the East Africa region, Uganda, the Pearl of Africa, has made tremendous growth towards enhancing its renewable energy capacity.
Looking into consideration the corporate reputation on projects enforcement and as part of GLAE’s corporate development plans in the continent, the on-schedule completion of the 24MW Kabulasoke Solar Power Park came more into action by the firm’s recent partnership with the Government of Mozambique.
The alliance is to develop a natural gas fired electric power generating plant at an estimated value of US $400million.
As part of the deal signed last May, GLAE which also operates a 105MW power plant in Zambia’s copper belt town of Ndola, under Ndola Energy Company Limited (NECL), is set to develop, finance, own and operate the plant to be fed with natural gas supplies from Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin.
In order to achieve the project commercial operation start date, ahead of the New Year, the project development team literally burnt the midnight oil to complete critical commissioning tests on Christmas day.
The achievement of the pilot commissioning tests and the achievement of a COD, in collaboration with the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL), now clear the way for the Kabulasoke Solar Power Park official commissioning on the Ugandan power grid for onward distribution to power consumers in coming days.
Reported by GLAE Director Michael Kearns, the Commercial Operations Start Date for the project brought to successful conclusion on Sunday, December 30, 2018 and duly confirmed by (UETCL), as per terms of a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Government of the Republic of Uganda.
“With the achievement of a COD milestone, we are now ready to undertake the ceremonial commissioning of the largest solar power park in East and Central Africa at the earliest opportunity,” Kearns said, adding that, “The grid switching of the Kabulasoke project marks yet another milestone for GLAE alongside our other projects in Ndola Zambia and Rovuma in Mozambique, where we are providing energy solutions to power national development ideals.”
Once officially commissioned, the Kabulasoke project, which is already connected to the national grid, Kearns said, will serve a population of more than five million in rural Uganda, who currently rely on kerosene; among other non-renewable energy sources while affording more than 21,000 tonnes of carbon savings.
“At Great Lakes Africa Energy we are proud to be associated with the Government of Uganda, Xsabo Power Limited and the consortium partners for making this project possible,” Kearns said, and added: “we are passionate about our mission to power the Great Lakes and Southern Africa region including Uganda, by developing and managing state-of-the-art power projects generated from the most efficient local sources of energy.”
The engineering design for the project, also merges a state of the art invertor plus power transformer solution to decrease energy losses. The GLAE Power plant design guarantees less than 0.5 per cent energy losses for the plant.
GLAE is in the process of securing additional Power Purchase Agreements in Africa and beyond and is currently identifying opportunities in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo among other countries.
