Petronella Sibeene
14 May 2008
Windhoek — Heavy rains received in most parts of the country this year have left Ruacana Falls flowing at full capacity resulting in the Ruacana Hydro-electric Power Station remaining a dependable power generation source for Namibia amid severe electricity shortages.
Despite being a seasonal power generation plant, the Ruacana power station continues to constitute 63 percent of the country's generation capacity contributing 240 megawatts of the country's 384-megawatt generation capacity.
"Ruacana is like a cash cow for NamPower. The investment was made in the 1970s and today it is a low-cost generation station," said NamPower Manager for Marketing and Corporation Communications, John Kaimu, during a recent media trip to the station.
Currently, the water inflow stands at above 300 cubic metres per second, making it easy to run the turbines at the station.
For the three generators to run at full capacity, there is need for an inflow of about 220 cubic metres per second.
Each generator produces 80 megawatts using 70 cubic metres per second.
"This year, the rains have been good and it is projected that the station will be running at full capacity until end of July/early August," Kaimu said.
The water drops almost 134 metres down vertical shafts into the heart of the mountain, where it drives the turbines before rejoining the Kunene River from a discharge tunnel.
NamPower says when in full operation, the three turbines can generate about 240 megawatts, which is fed into the Namibia Power Grid at 330000 volts.
Today, the Ruacana Hydro-electric Power Station is still the core of Namibia's power supply system, the power utility says.
Once the water levels fall, Kaimu explained that NamPower collects water in its dam for a few hours before releasing it to run the turbines.
Under normal circumstances, the low water flow is experienced around September and October, said Moses Hange, the Maintenance Superintendent at Ruacana power station.
Last year around October, the water levels had dropped to 21.5 cubic metres per second, 31 cubic metres less than that experienced by mid-September 2006.
During this period, the station does not run at full capacity but supplements whatever is generated with what comes from other power stations and through regional power trading, he added.
In case of failure in generation, the station has diesel generators installed. These automatically turn on 20 seconds after blackout to pump the water out of the station.
NamPower plans to instal a fourth generator at the station. This will step up the station's generation capacity to 320 megawatts.
Installation of the fourth unit at Ruacana will cost NamPower approximately N$400 million.
"We are still at the tendering stage but the commissioning date will be end 2010 or early 2011," Kaimu said.
With Ruacana power station generating power at full capacity, the Van Eck power station, a standby power station with a generation capacity of 120 megawatts has of late been running at 50 megawatts, Kaimu said.
The coal-powered Van Eck has proved to be expensive with cost estimates standing at one million Namibian dollars per day.
"We need about 1000 tonnes of coal in 24 hours to run the Van Eck. At the moment, we try to keep it at 50 megawatts to cut costs. We only increase the generation capacity during off-peak hours," Kaimu added.
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