The Young Digital Activist and Community Resource Person from Rwanda Climate Change and Development Network (RCCDN) visited Rwanda’s largest-scale solar field in the Rubona Sector Rwamagana District.
The Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice Alumni, who are also the RCCDN Young Digital Activist and Community Resource Person after a great experience they had in Kenya during the two weeks training organized by PACJA, and visited a solar power plant there, they later went on and found out another Solar Power Plant in Rwanda. That is the construction of this project Scatec – Solar Power Plant which was inaugurated in February 2014 and so in July same year, they started generating power. Thus, being East Africa’s first large-scale commercial solar field with 28,360 panels; covering 17 hectares, and bringing in 8.5 megawatts of electricity.
The Energy generated by the solar field is 14 million units and 8,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided on an annual basis. More than 15,000 homes have been receiving power brought by this project and it increased Rwanda’s generation capacity by 6%.
As a renewable source of power, Scatec Solar Energy is contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation towards climate change which is critical to protecting humans, wildlife, and ecosystems. The power plant does not generate noise or chemical pollutants during its regular daily operation and maintenance and does not contribute to deforestation, erosion, or desertification. Instead, it improves the quality of water supplies, reclamation of degraded land, and a reduction of the number of required power transmission lines as Twaha Twahirwa, the Solar Power Plant Supervisor said, “We need energy but clean energy.”
“We face some challenges some are climate change problems, the breaking of glass stones or heavy birds falling on solar panels, and Soiling (a way of cleaning the panels) which is very expensive and becomes a challenge since the panels might be destroyed in the process,” said Twaha Twagirimana, the Plant Supervisor who showed the RCCDN Staff around.
The one revealed that another challenge they face is that the power generated is not directly connected to the residents close to the power plant it is sent to the utility and then gets distributed throughout the grid.
Twaha Twagirimana said some measures have been put in place to fight against Climate Change problems and environmental issues. “Our employees are trained on the site’s environmental management plan, hazmat management procedures, waste management procedures, and pollution prevention procedures. We also fight against erosion amongst many others issues.”
Scatec Solar Power Plant provides significant socio-economic benefits to local communities and countrywide as it contributes approximately 8.5MW to the national grid as mentioned above. generates only Clean energy and their goal is to develop 1000 MW of Solar Energy.
This Solar Power Plant has created around 350 employment for local people in the area. Not only do private homes benefit from the project but also the renowned; Agahozo Shalom Youth Village benefits from it since they own the land where the project is built. Rent paid for the land helps vulnerable children and young adults who were orphaned during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. More than 50 students also received technical training in this solar field on engineering and solar technology to encourage them to work in green jobs in the future.
With the help of: Djenny Mwizerwa
