Road sign at the construction plant of a methane extraction platform on the shore of Lake Kivu near Kibuye, Rwanda.
From Wikipedia: Lake Kivu has recently been found to contain approximately 55 billion cubic metres ( trillion cubic feet) of dissolved biogas at a depth of 300 metres (1,000 ft). Until 2004, extraction of the gas was done on a small scale, with the extracted gas being used to run boilers at the Bralirwa brewery in Gisenyi. As far as large-scale exploitation of this resource is concerned, the Rwandan government has negotiated with a number of parties to produce methane from the lake. In 2011 ContourGlobal, a based energy company focused on emerging markets, secured project financing to initiate a large-scale methane extraction project. The project will be run through a local Rwandan entity called KivuWatt, using an offshore barge platform to extract, separate, and clean the gasses obtained from the lake bed before pumping purified methane via an underwater pipeline to on-shore gas engines. Stage one of the project aims to build and supply three "gensets" along the lake shore, totaling 25 MW of electrical capacity. Initial project operations are scheduled to commence in 2012. In addition to managing gas extraction, KivuWatt will also manage the electrical generation plants and on-sell the electrical power to the Rwandan government under the terms of a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). This allows KivuWatt to control a vertically integrated energy offering from point of extraction to point of sale into the local grid. Extraction is said to be cost-effective and relatively simple because once the gas-rich water is pumped up, the dissolved gases (primarily carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and methane) begin to bubble out as the water pressure gets lower. This project is expected to increase Rwanda's energy generation capability by as much as 20 times, and will enable Rwanda to sell electricity to neighboring African countries. The firm was awarded the 2011 Africa Power deal of the year for innovation in the financing arrangements it obtained from vari
Size: 4219px × 2472px
Location: Kibuye; Rwanda
Photo credit: © Bert de Ruiter / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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