Astra Innovations and the energy sector
Astra Innovations has made new strides in relocating electricity. Cynthia Wandia, Managing Director of the company’s Düsseldorf branch, in Germany, came up with a different approach in making sure every part of the world has electricity, especially areas such as Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
The idea came about as the extent of power assets in Europe, although invaluable, became quite unprofitable. One of the factors that caused this situation is the financial crisis that happened over five years ago.
This caused a decrease in manufacturing, which ultimately caused a decrease in power demand and in turn, caused electricity stock prices to fall sharply.
While managing a power plant was and is still a costly investment, most of the costs involved are around getting the fuel necessary to power up the plants.
Moreover, gas, which a percentage of power plants use as fuel, is bought at a fixed price. This made gas fuel power plants unaffordable, as investors had to pay a lot, but did not get much in return.
Relocating plants, supplying energy
Now, there is an abundance of energy, somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 megawatts, that is stranded, meaning dormant, mothballed and even still working, but at a cost. The people at Astra Innovations are constantly trying to find strategic ways in which to use this latent source, by relocating plants in areas where they are needed the most.
But by relocate, we mean that their power plant model is simply re-applied to different ones around the world, making them more affordable than building a power plant from scratch. By doing so, investors are save time by using already existing power plants. And they are not the only ones trying to provide more efficient power services, with the UAE sharing the same thought.
So far, Astra Innovations have created a stream of about 40 projects, which are capable of delivering an estimated energy value of 3000 megawatts. These projects are developing rapidly, with one pilot project of creating a 35 megawatt power plant in 2016.
In perspective, building a new power plant can take more than three years, while these projects can be finished in about nine months. Furthermore, the cost prices of these power plants are quite low, comparatively, since this is all about relocating a model from one place to another.
Cynthia Wandia believes Astra Innovations’s best asset is working with what they have and not redesigning anything new. By doing so, they are saving time and money, which is something that many countries need to start thinking about, in order to make electricity more affordable.
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Tags: Energy performance, News, Performance in Germany
