Kinagop Wind Park, 61MW

Kinagop Wind Park LTD, a local company here in Kenya has announced plans to build a 61MW wind park in Kinagopplateau in Nyandarua County.

The wind farm will have a nameplate capacity of 60.8 MW and the power will be fed into the grid. The company added to say that they will apply for a power generating license in December 5th.

The new plant will add to the nations wind power network breaking ranks to be the largest wind power station. Currently Kenya boasts of Ngong Wind Power as the largest farm with 5 turbines and 5.1MW output. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project, once complete will not only be the largest wind power in Kenya but even in Africa.

South Korea to build the world's largest Wind Farm

The 50Million people Republic of Korea has announced plans to build the world's largest Wind Power Station which will be offshore. The government has said that it will invest 10.2 trillion won (US$9 billion) in building a 2.5 Gigawatt (GW) offshore wind farm, the largest in the world.

Korea Electric Power(KEP), the countries largest power company, will be incharge of the project.The project will be divied into 3phases:

1. 100MW, 353Million US Dollars, (Demonstartion Phase) - 2014
2. 400MW, 1.4Billion US Dollars, Second Phase - 2016
3. 2GW, 8.2Trillion won,Third Phase - 2019

Joining Korea Electric in the consortium of companies building the offshore wind farm are eight suppliers, including Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co., Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co.

“South Korea is a latecomer to wind energy and is coming in at a very difficult time for the industry, where severe competition and falling turbine prices are squeezing the profits of the entire supply chain,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance lead wind analyst Justin Woo commented.

“Offshore wind is probably the best entry point for Korean companies into this sector, given their extensive shipbuilding and marine engineering experience as well as the country’s excellent offshore wind resources.”

Source: Bloomberg Business Week
Clean Technica

Wind Farmer 4.2

When it comes to designing a wind farm project, no one does it better than WindFarmer 4.2. Yes, GL Garrad Hassan have released version 4.2 and I cannot wait to get my hands on.
This is what lies inside this release:

NEW: Increased support of ESRI shape files for site limits and object locations
NEW: Tools for design and optimisation of regular grid turbine layouts
NEW: Improved modelling of array effects between large wind farms

NEW: Expanded MCP+ Module with more displays and analysis
NEW: Arabic and Polish language versions.

You can try the demo here.

WindFarmer is wind energy software used to calculate turbine wake impacts, energy yield, and site conditions for determining turbine suitability. WindFarmer uses wind modeling inputs from WAsP or CFD software. WindFarmer is developed internally by the independent renewable energy consultant GL Garrad Hassan. WindFarmer can engage several types of wake models, including an Eddy Viscosity wake model which is more complex than the standard PARK model employed by WindPRO, a leading competitor.

More recently, the Eddy Viscosity model has been modified to account for previous discrepancies in the wake modelling of large wind farms. WindFarmer and WindPRO have both been trusted by investment banks to develop the published wind energy assessments used to determine financing for proposed wind farms.WindFarmer, like WindPRO, can optimize a wind farm layout for energy yield given turbine spacing, setback distances, shadow flicker, and acoustic noise level constraints.

Both products also feature wind farm visualization capabilities.

Makerere University tries out its new Electrical Vehicle

Makerere University students will this afternoon test drive their first electric car after three years of making.The Kiira EV made by the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology students, is the first electric vehicle to be made in Uganda.

The team leader, Mr Paul Musasizi, said the car is a clear demonstration of existence of innovation and skill at the university.
“When we started the project, we wanted to demonstrate that Uganda has as good talent as

that in the US or Germany and now that this is over, we expect and want it to be taken up,” Mr Musasizi said.

Waiting on production
The vehicle is a two-seater with a theoretical speed of 200km/hr and 150km/hr practically because of its light weight. It can be charged after running 80km.“We named it Kiira EV because we are fascinated about green energy and the first electricity generation in Uganda was at Kiira,” Mr Musasizi said of its naming.

It remains to be seen if the success of this vehicle can be translated into actual production.
Mr Musasizi said in an interview that the innovation demonstrates the faculty’s commitment to green transportation and that work has already started on a 28-seater public electric transport vehicle.

The vehicle is designed to replace the current diesel and petrol engine cars. Similar innovations have been made by car makers in Japan, German, France and the US.

Inspiration
Although some components of the car like the steering wheel and other minor accessories were imported from manufacturers outside Uganda, most parts of the car including the core body and combustion system were designed and built locally with the assistance of local craftsmen in places such as Katwe, an innovation suburb in Kampala.The Kiira project is a run-up to Vision 200, a car made by the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, which attracted the participation of Makerere University students in 2008.Inspired by the first project, the students and university decided to launch their project in 2009.

It is one of the three science and technology projects at the faculty that were allocated Shs4.5 billion this financial year. The other projects include; the Laboratory

Infrastructure and Industrial Training.

The vehicle will be publicly tested at the faculty tomorrow and officially launched by the President later in the month.

Source: www.monitor.co.ug