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NEWS UPDATE - Mud slide damages power house - July 2010 - Download the latest News [DOWNLOAD] Welcome to Kisiizi Hospital Power Limited. We exist to provide electricity to the Kisiizi Hospital group, residencies and neighbouring villages. Our carbon footprint is small – we use hydro-power. The beautiful waterfall next to Kisiizi has a small dam behind it which diverts water around the hillside and then down to the Generator House. The old turbine produced 60kW of power which was of huge importance to the running of Kisiizi. In addition to lighting for wards and homes, power allows the use of medical and surgical equipment, autoclaves etc. But the Hospital has grown. The power was no longer enough for Hospital and staff, let alone for giving power to the community.
A major new project has come to an end having installed a new generator providing much greater capacity and able to distribute electricity to the local villages as well as to the Hospital compound area. The project had World Bank and Government of Uganda backing. We appreciated the support of the Rural Electrification Board (REB) and its secretariat, the REA.
The new turbine itself is Crossflow and is made by Ossberger, a German firm with a long and sure track record in the manufacture of these particular machines. The turbine/generator technical specification is:
The rationale behind the specification is that the major service intervals on bearing changes etc. should be few and far between, under normal conditions not less than 12 years. It was decided to opt for the Crossflow, rather than a more efficient Francis type but which was not so capable of handling a wide spread of flows.
The requirement for flow control was so that under low load conditions the water going
down the pipe will be reduced and thus go over the waterfall instead. This was part of the design, along with the assured minimum by pass flow, to reduce the impact on the Kisiizi Falls themselves. The new generator has been live since 2009. We no longer suffer from power cuts, well– now they are only for essential maintenance. The Power Company is wiring up an increasing number of customers out in the neighbouring villages. The Power Company has benefited from a team of electricians and electrical engineers lead by Paul Darrell. Their essential support is being supported by Scottish and Southern Energy in the UK. Last year was the 10th anniversary of the merger that formed Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), and ten grants were offered for training projects. Paul was awarded£10,000, enabling him to pay half the expenses of the SSE staff who had expressed interest in coming to Uganda with me to train local apprentice electricians. During the visit last April we were able to equip a dozen apprentices to work independently. After the SSE team left they began the work of wiring up the ten schools, a hundred small shops, and about two hundred houses. Can you imagine the three secondary schools, trying to manage without electricity? This new access makes good use of the extra capacity of the new hydro-electric generator, and will provide income to support the hospital. The enlarged hydro-electric project is now complete, and can provide electricity up to 8km from the hospital along a new high voltage line. The old 60KW generator is having a well-earned rest and check-up, while still being ready to keep the hospital going during maintenance of the new generator. Customers are paying for their electricity by means of a simple pre-paid metering system. Pay for your power, get a number to key into your meter, and suddenly, your electricity arrives. In a similar way to telephones. KHPL plans that in the medium term future, the Company will link to the Ugandan National
Grid. Currently this does not exist in the Kisiizi area. Such a connection could be of
benefit to the Company and to consumers, by being able to “import” and “export” electricity in time of higher, or lower, local demand. Bill Lovett
Kisiizi Hospital Power Limited : Update The decision as to which type, was made in August, but realisation of this had to await a complete repricing of the project and a resubmission to the Rural Electrification Board (REB) for an amended subsidy, which was approved and signed earlier this month. We are grateful to its secretariat, the REA, for processing the payments to the manufacturer for the Company. The main technical specification is such:
Also:
However the time lag between turbine order and delivery is in the region of 11 months, and in the meantime...God willing...
And Finally:
Thank you, and wishing you a Happy New Year
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The rationale behind the specification is that the major service intervals on bearing changes etc. should be few and far between. (Under normal conditions not less than 12 years).
