Power Africa Initiative inspires US firms to step up and take action in Rapid Growth Economies of Frontier Nations such as South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Liberia, and others.
President Obama gives strong call to action, and US firms such as GE Power & Water and USP&E Global offer energy solutions such as mobile power stations and waste heat recovery solutions.
President Nelson Mandela is nearing the end of his great life now, but once said, “A Vision without action is just a dream.
Action without vision just passes time. A vision with action can change the world." Over the weekend, President Barack Obama launched a new power Africa initiative while visiting Cape Town University in South Africa.
The President said, "We have got enormous opportunity to unleash the next era of African growth. I see Africa as the world's next major economic success story and the United States wants to be a partner in that success." Some innovative firms in the US are doing just this.
For businesses in Africa to join the global economy, power infrastructure must be a priority. In the power generation industry, power output efficiency and cost effectiveness reign supreme.
Finding the perfect balance between needed power and a feasible price for equipment to fit power project requirements is crucial and a large task when it comes to feasibility planning.
USP&E Global, a Celina, Texas based power generation EPC and O&M leader provides technical solutions and answers as well as consulting services, and is a leading expert on projects in Africa.
USP&E partners with other leading US and European firms to maximize power station efficiency, environmental impact, cost effectiveness, and overall customer satisfaction for key businesses and government utility operations in Emerging Markets.
Of these partnerships, USP&E and GE Power & Water have teamed together to offer the GE Clean Cycle power generator to turn "reciprocating engine heat into additional power.
" The GE Clean Cycle option provides a solution for such daunting questions between power and price as it offers a way to turn excess heat into added power using no additional fuel, resulting in zero emissions. The GE Clean Cycle power generator through the help of USP&E's design, packaging and distribution services, is changing the way African businesses think about waste heat recovery, which is truly revolutionizing the power industry.
U2 frontman and global humanitarian Bono said recently in Washington DC, “Aid is just a stopgap, commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse" (Global Entrepreneurship Week, Georgetown University).
GE Clean Cycle - Free Energy to Fight Poverty and Promote Job Creation
With an increased output of up to 125 kW of electricity, no added fuel, and a 5% increase in efficiency and 10% increase in power generation the GE Clean Cycle power generator makes a real diff.
The versatile application makes it available on new and used reciprocating engines and can even be run on varying heat output levels thanks to the advanced monitoring technology present.
As heat is given off by reciprocating generators in the form of exhaust, the potential for added power is diminished.
However, this loss of power 'that could be' has met its match. The GE Clean Cycle power generator application 'captures energy in the form of heat and converts it into usable energy in the form of electricity.'
This technology, known as Organic Ranking Cycle or ORC, is now available for your power operation to add power at no additional fuel usage, further maximizing your power generation output. ORC, as mentioned, captures heat from exhaust and heat exchangers, in which organic fluid (refrigerant) is then pumped through the exchangers exposing it to heat.
This heat converts the refrigerant to vapor form where it expands across a turbine forcing it to spin. The turbine, which is integrated into a hermetically sealed power module paired with a 125 kW generator, creates the desired electricity, with additional vapor being cooled back into the liquid stage in a condenser repeating the cycle.
Energy that Changes the World
President Obama is on a roll in Africa, and has power infrastructure at the very top of his strategic agenda.
"Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It's the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It's the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs, and it's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy," he said Sunday, June 30 from South Africa.
It appears that today, more than ever, what the world most needs from the West is leadership in the way of strategic, aggressive, transparent, sustainable, Entrepreneurship.
USP&E founder and CEO Will Gruver believes that the Frontier Economies in strategic growth markets of Africa will be the epicenter of what will be "the most significant bull market in history." Perhaps entrepreneurs and businesses in the west need Africa as much as Africa needs them.
