The Oasis Reporters

February 7, 2020

By Engr. Cade Agbugba

Here’s a cheaper storage system for a viable Sun Energy Farming Project designed in Germany by my humble self. The setting is on top of Udi Hill, which stretches and sprawls magnificently, 240 meters above sea-level, the biggest tourist attraction in South-Eastern Nigeria.

(1) Pumped hydro storage engineering is simple to understand. Using two water reservoirs which are separated vertically. During the day as the sun is shining, water is pumped using solar energy from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir and when required – In the evening, night and early morning when the sun is not shining, the water flow is reversed and guided through turbines to generate electricity. This operating principle is illustrated in the accompanying infographic Image.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM.

(3) Humans have been harnessing water to perform work for thousands of years. The Greeks used water wheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago.

(4) Water is subject to weather, weather to climate and climate to earth a- energy balance. In 224 days of downpour between April 12 and Nov. 24, 2019, Enugu State residents witnessed a rainfall of 1,741mm as the state suffered its worst flooding and blackout in a decade.

MY HYPOTHESIS

(5) To generate 800MWh power to fix the energy poverty, about 29 million gallons of floodwater passing through a turbine would be needed. Enugu State land area is 7534km2 saturated by 1,741mm will supply the water volume required.

(6) Installation of 10MW solar panel required, yielding about 49 MWh, from which 10% will be used to pump water back to the upper reservoirs, 5% to power over 200 Aqua-Agricultural farms.

SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL BENEFITS

(7) If the state sells the generated 114 MWh power sold at 10 cents/$/kWh (cheaper than Enugu DisCo), this will generate $5 million each year, with a savings of 50 cents per household per day.

(8) If the estimated 243,000 households in Enugu East, North, and South are saving 50cents a day in their energy bill, that would amount to a total savings of $44 million, money that will be spent on provisions, foods and medicines – Children like in most of my works will the biggest winners.

AQUA-AGRICULTURE

(9) The project is designed to use the lower reservoirs as a huge Fish farm capable of producing 9,000 – 25,000 metric tonnes of African catfish, milkfish, and tiger prawn, with a market value of $14 – $32 million. The three species chosen does pretty well in flood filtered water.

This is a reverse-engineering brainstorming design applicable in both Taraba State (Chappal Wadd) and Cross River State (Obudu Plateau) and both states having a higher elevation than Enugu will produce 5 times more electricity – It Is not a job application or contract seeking from Enugu, Taraba or Cross River governments.
The State governments mentioned can investigate the viability of what this plan is all about.

Using sensitivity analysis and the software HOME, I tested the impact of some critical variables like cost of evacuation, flood loses, cost of life lost, job created, diesel generators retired, CO2 savings and social cost of carbon and can say with utmost confidence that the project revenue generation in each of the three states will be higher than each of the state’s budget while reducing mortality rate by at least 10%.

Written by Engr. Cade Agbugba.

Engr. Agbugba is a Nigerian born engineer, resident in Germany.

www.blackwatts.com

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