
National Cement Nakuru
Kenya
In early 2020, the Devki Group opened its Nakuru plant, located in Nakuru county in the Great Rift Valley, to expand its manufacturing capacity. The plant produces various types of cement, including Ordinary Portland Cement and Portland Pozzolana Cement.
National Cement is committed to environmental sustainability and reducing carbon emissions. The company has implemented various measures to reduce energy consumption, optimize water usage, and minimize waste generation, among other initiatives.
Cement is one of the industries that contributes significantly to CO2 emissions globally. As such, the Devki Group summoned help from CBE to build a solar PV facility to mitigate emissions and provide reliable power. For this, CBE installed bifacial solar modules, which capture solar irradiation reflected off the ground, enhancing energy production. Combined with a single-axis tracker, this setup significantly increases PV output and enables the facility to achieve peak production rapidly on clear, sunny days, sometimes as early as 10 am.
Designing a solution that suited the client’s operations was paramount. The power from the PV facility integrates into the factory’s medium voltage distribution at 10,000 volts(10kV), ensuring that the energy generated from PV can be utilized across any of the factory operations, from the kilns to the mills and the packaging facilities. To deliver power to the factory’s main distribution panel, a ~1km long 10kV overhead power line was set up that connects the PV plant to the main factory power plant.