Assessing Energy Potential and Generation of Electricity from Erta Ale Lava Lake in Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2018-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Ethiopia is a developing country, where majority of the population lives in rural areas. In 2016, only 26.56 % of Ethiopian inhabitants have an access to electricity, as reported by World Bank, which could be considered as one of the lowest rates of access to modern energy services, in which biomass primarily shares 92.4% of total energy supply.
This project Focus on Assessing Energy Potential and Generation of Electricity from Erta Ale Lava Lake in Ethiopia. The main objective of this project is to design, analysis and optimization of a special type power plant by changing shape, orientation and principle of operation of the steam generator using Lava Lake as a source of energy. Estimation of three dimensional temperature distributions using linear interpolation and energy potential of Erta Ale Lava Lake using shell discretization method as well as estimation of maximum possible extracted power using optimization method has been calculated. Many impossibilities were made possible by developing new mechanisms. After this, a brick coated steam boiler which safely operates at a high temperature up to 1200 oC have been designed, analyzed, optimized.
Average temperature of the lava lake estimated to 1200 oC and the lava lake would be estimated to continuously join with mantle and core of the Earth through Magma tube and Magma reservoir. An internal heat content of our Planet was estimated to be 1031 Joules (3x1015 TWH), which is approximately 100 billion times current (2016) total annual energy consumption of the world. An ideal power potential of this lava lake estimated to 408 MW and maximum extractable power estimated to be 200 MW which could be estimated to 1.7 billion birr per annum. Maximum possible length of boiler pipes, number of boiler pipes, space between them and diameter of the pipe has been estimated to be 1500 m, 93 m and 600 mm respectively.
This special type power plant mainly consists of brick coated steam generator, cooling tower, pump, reheater, regenerator and other accessories. In general, this extra ordinary energy extraction from Lava Lake is environmentally friendly and easy to control.
Description
Keywords
energy, electricity, Erta Ale, Lava Lake, interpolation, optimization