Siemens Energy’s recently appointed managing director for Africa, Nadja Haakansson, shares insights about the critical role the company’s solutions play in enabling a reliable power system for Africa
In the next 20 years, we can expect to see an increase of 50% in global electricity generation demand. However, vast numbers of people, around 770 million today, are still lacking access to electricity, of which the majority of these people are in Africa (around 580 million).
Opening the Siemens Energy Service Solutions for Africa webinar to the press on 9 March, Nadja Haakansson, managing director for Africa at Siemens Energy, explained, “Energy availability is going to be key to fulfilling the potential and economic development of Africa. This is where Siemens Energy can support in enabling an available and reliable energy system for Africa.”
The strength of Siemens Energy lies in its long heritage of 150 years in transforming and contributing to the electrification and transformation of the world with their various technologies, and also having a portfolio that covers the entire energy value chain. This covers solutions, products, systems and services across generation, industrial applications, renewables, transmission, and recently, in the new energy business with their electrolysed technology for hydrogen.
“Also in generation,” she continued, “We have a wide ranging portfolio from medium gas turbines, small gas turbines to compressors, mainly in the oil and gas segments where we are actively supporting customers to transition to a more sustainable solution.”
In their innovation portfolio, there are three main pillars: low to zero emission power generation, the transport of electricity and storage of energy and the reduction of carbon footprint and consumption in industrial applications.
“Many countries have already committed to zero emissions targets in the next 30 to 40 years and we see our role here as very critical in supporting societies to make that transition.”
Siemens Energy’s pioneering lead can be seen in their work in making their gas turbines future proof for the hydrogen economy.
"The idea is the accessible excess renewable energy coming from wind and solar that can be used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis, which can then be reelectrified and used in other industries; from transport to heating buildings, mobility and synthetic fuels that can also be used in the petrochemical industry and further manufacturing industries – linking the energy sector to the energy consuming sectors.”
Haakansson showed the example of their best-in-class gas turbine combined cycle power plant solution with their medium gas turbine SGT-800, range up to 60MW, which is available in their markets worldwide.
“The excellent part of this solution of a combined cycle power plant is its efficient use of energy. When we deliver these solutions to our markets globally around the world today or in the future when the hydrogen economy is ready, our gas turbines are ready to be used with hydrogen.”
It is hoped that the gas turbine will be able to run 100% on hydrogen. “This is a great solution which I believe is going to be very suitable for Africa’s need of development,” said Haakansson, adding, “The importance of having local regional services near our customers is critica,l and where we’re dedicated in Africa with our capabilities and service support, from spare parts, field service engineers to repairs, overhauls modernisations, upgrades and long-term service programmes, dedicated to high reliability of assets, operations and maintenance. We’ve years of experience in Africa where we operate and maintain a power plant for our customers.”
Siemens: five fields of actions instrumental in the energy transformation
Energy storage: Siemens Energy is developing technologies and partnering with other technology providers to enable storage of energy through either chemical, thermal or other media.
Decarbonised heat and industrial processes: The company provides solutions to transform and improve existing infrastructure in industries like oil and gas.
Power to X: It is a very exciting area that enables excess renewable power to produce hydrogen and synthetic green fuels that can be used in other industries and applications.
Service solutions: Siemens Energy is working very actively on having a digitalisation and data analytics portfolio, which is critical in multiple areas for providing smarter services, remote connections to support customers and the ability for predictive maintenance and remote connectivity. This enables regions and countries to troubleshoot more quickly to do planned and unplanned maintenance, which is a very important area for them.
Resilient grids and reliability: As the industry sees an increase in renewables, this creates new challenges with the intermittency of renewable power systems and increases the need for solutions around grid stability. Siemens Energy offers such solutions through transmission abilities, systems and solutions as well as gas turbine technology which enables grid stability.
