|
Mauritius firm turns sugar into electricity
Nita Bhalla
ARTICLE (May 21 2003) : Set in fields of luscious sugarcane, Mauritius's Belle Vue power plant looks strangely out of place, its huge boilers and cooling towers dominating the surrounding plantations.
Belle Vue uses the latest technology to turn one of the tiny Indian Ocean Island's most prized assets, sugarcane, into electricity.
"There was so much uncertainty during the Gulf war in 1991, when Mauritius was importing all its raw products from the Gulf region to produce electricity," said Jean Michel Quevauvilliers, the plant's maintenance manager.
"We realised that bagasse - a fibrous residue obtained from processing sugar cane - could be used for power production."
The Belle Vue power plant opened in 2000. The plant, in the north of the island, uses bagasse for part of the year to produce 46 mega watts or 21 percent of the country's electricity. The island's peak electricity consumption is about 300 mw.
The bagasse comes from the Belle Vue sugar mill next to the power station, which crushes the cane to produce sugar. Once the sugar is extracted, two huge conveyors belts take the fibrous residue to the plant.
This goes to two boilers where it is burned, raising the steam to temperatures as high as 525 degrees Celsius (977 degrees Fahrenheit).
The steam is then transported to turbo-generators to produce electricity, which is transmitted to the national grid.
According to Quevauvilliers, the plant sells electricity to national grid for approximately 1.80 Mauritius rupees ($0.067) per kilowatt hour.
"Power generation from bagasse is environmentally friendly as it is renewable energy," Quevauvilliers said.
The generation of fuel from bagasse takes place from June to December, the harvest season for the sugarcane.
From January to June (the inter-crop season), Belle Vue uses coal imported from South Africa and Mozambique. On average 130,000 tonnes are imported each year, officials said.
"The plant is highly automated, with only three operators required for normal operation," Quevauvilliers said.
"We have visitors from all over the world including Africa and Brazil, who come to see what we are doing here."
The Belle Vue power plant cost 90 million euros (dollars) to build and is one of the biggest privately funded projects in Mauritius.
Mauritius hopes that by maximising the use of sugar, the island which is world's seventh largest sugar producer, can help to cushion farmers against the effects of decreasing sugar prices on the international market.
"Currently the cost of production of sugar is very high. It costs us 18 cents to produce one pound of sugar. We want to reduce that cost to 14 cents per pound by 2005," said Pravind Jugnauth, minister of agriculture, food technology and natural resources.
Mauritius's sugar exports accounted for 85 percent of all agricultural exports last year, generating 8.2 billion rupees ($300 million) in foreign revenue - almost six percent of the island's total gross domestic product. The island harvests 620,000 tonnes of raw sugar annually.
The government hopes to increase its generation of electricity from bagasse and ensure that more land is prepared for mechanised production of sugar as part of the measures aimed at boosting the sugar sector.
Source: Business
Recorder
|
Pakissan.com;
|
