Establishment of wind power plant to replace 300 KW of diesel generation at Liwale-Lindi

Tanzania is a developing country whereby the demand for electrical energy is increasing day by day because of increasing population and industrialization. Liwale district in Lindi Tanzania is among the isolated areas with Diesel Power plants in the country. In most cases, it is extremely expensive to extend high tension transmission lines to such isolated places that are separated from the main power grid, Liwale included. The energy generated through Diesel does not meet the demand of the population. Actually, the Government and TANESCO use a lot of money to import diesel, buy spare parts, and frequent maintenance including major overhaul. This study was aimed at analyzing the viability of establishing wind power overhaul. This study was aimed at analyzing the viability of establishing wind power plant to replace 300kW of the existing diesel generation at Liwale. Information and other data needed about the Diesel Generation Plant were obtained from TANESCO-Liwale during field visit, while most of the wind data were obtained from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA). The turbine was recommended from Enercon (German Company) by taken into consideration wind speed, height and other related factors. RET Screen is the Software that has been used to evaluate the agency production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability for wind as the type of renewable-energy source. Due to the evaluation that has been taken, it was obtained that, at a wind speed of 7m/s, the output energy of 950,000 kWh can be achieved, which is equal to the average energy obtained by diesel generation per year. Since Liwale district is in need of stable power generation system, more analysis is recommended to be done on solar resource and other sources to help the investors to choose the viable investment accordingly.