Photo by: Bloomberg
Waste heat recovery has started at two major sites owned by telecommunications group MTN, with more sites to be converted during the remainder of the year, power solutions provider Master Power Technologies says.
MTN made use of trigeneration, with gas used to produce electricity to power its operations, while engine waste heat was used to either generate hot water or take the hot water through a heat absorption process to produce chilled water for use in MTN’s buildings.
The group’s facilities consumed large amounts of electricity for lighting, heating and ventilation and transmission equipment and by using gas as an energy source, the group was able to run independently of municipal power and was unaffected by rolling blackouts and load-shedding.
Master Power senior sales engineer Dave Warren said MTN was in the fortunate position where, by increasing its power generating efficiency from 40% to about 90% through the recovery of waste heat, it will be able to reduce the cents per kilowatt-hour cost of that electricity by over 50%, as the complete trigeneration package delivered cheaper power than that supplied by the local municipality.