Huawei Technologies, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has announced plans to advance smart grid technologies to Africa, beginning with South Africa, followed by other countries like Kenya.
The announcement was made during the recently concluded African Utility Week (AUW) 2017, held in Cape Town, where Huawei Technologies co-hosted its 5th Power Summit.
During the summit, Huawei and State Grid Information and Telecommunication Technology Company of China demonstrated a 3D real-time display platform for smart grids, which is a high-performance, high-availability cloud computing platform providing reliable cloud services for power companies.
Smart PV Power Generation solution can generate 3% more power than the average level. If the solution is applied on a 100MW power plant, it can help generate over 20 million US dollars of income in 25 years.
The Power Transmission and Transformation Communications solution innovatively provides both hard and soft pipes to enable multiple services, such as Smart Grid SCADA, phone dispatching, OA and video surveillance, ensuring the security and reliability of power transmission networks.
“As resources are increasingly depleted, power companies are searching for a reliable and sustainable way of providing electricity. They are progressively moving towards smart grids which integrate traditional power systems with advanced ICT technologies, including cloud computing, big data, IoT and mobility, to connect, support situational-awareness and achieve business intelligence of various power terminals,” said Cyril Xu Director Public Relations and Communications at Huawei Kenya.
The major announcement comes at a time when the continent is seeking to grow its power connectivity, including Kenya where the Government and the energy sector are putting in efforts to connect homes across the country with electricity. A key project in this docket is the Kshs 34 billion project that was launched by Kenya Power which aims to ensure that 70% of the country is covered under the national grid by end of 2016.
In Kenya today, only 37% of the population has been connected in the electricity grid.
During the summit, Huawei also collaborated with NARI Group and showcased the Power Distribution Automatic Network Solution that integrates Huawei’s advantages in eLTE and industrial routers to provide real-time and flexible communications networks, enabling reliable and intelligent power distribution. For power consumption, Huawei cooperated with SAP and Long Shine to demonstrate the AMI solution that offers a near 100% success rate of data collection and control by leveraging Power Line Communication for Internet of things (PLC-IoT) and Long Term Evolution for Internet of things (eLTE-IoT). PLC-IoT has a 100% success rate of communications and LTE-IoT achieves wide coverage with low power consumption, maximising the value of electricity data.
“In line with Huawei’s ‘platform + ecosystem’ strategy, we’re working with strategic partners such as State Grid Information and Telecommunication Technology Company of China, SAP, Accenture, T-System and Tech Mahindra, to build an open and win-win ecosystem for the electric power industry. In addition, Huawei has helped over 170 electric power customers improve their energy management efficiency and ensure safe and reliable operations of grids, to light up and enrich the modern society and to promote the utilisation of renewable energy resources,” commented Jerry Ji, President of Energy Sector, Huawei Enterprise Business Group.
The summit attracted over 260 government officials, electric power industry executives and experts who gathered to discuss how innovative ICT products and solutions can be used to enable a Smart Grid which delivers efficient, reliable and affordable energy to consumers.
“The use of smart grids is being unfolded. Leveraging Huawei’s leading ICT, we have developed major solutions together with our partners which covers all aspects of the electric power industry and the Power Cloud solution. The application of IoT and cloud computing will help power companies enhance operational efficiency and accelerate innovations,” commented Jerry Ji, President of Energy Sector, Huawei Enterprise Business Group.
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