In this blog post series we shed light on customers Kitekraft's customers. We tell you what they do, what their vision is, and how our technology can help them to achieve it. Once our product is on the market these companies will be the first to be supplied with Kitekraft systems. This episode presents: CENEC.
CENEC was founded in 2014 and understands itself as a dynamic zero emission company, focusing on de-carbonizing industry players and creating opportunities to establish business cases driven by renewable energy, targeting their Scope 1 & 2 emissions while staying cost-competitive.
Back in 2021, Martin Walzer, Technical Director at CENEC reached out to Kitekraft. He introduced us to one of their projects in planning, Prieska Power Reserve (Pty) Ltd (www.prieskapower.com). Prieska is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, perfectly located in an area with very high solar irradiation and a good wind resource. The mostly flat landscape surrounding it is marked by large elevations - plateaus that can stretch out for kilometers. And that is where CENEC is planning a renewable energy hub producing electricity from the sun and the wind and converting it into green hydrogen & ammonia. Thus, replacing imports of gray ammonia into South Africa. The project is listed with ISA – Infrastructure South Africa as a project of "national interest", as deemed by the Presidency of South Africa.
"Prieska Power Reserve will be the first green hydrogen hub in South Africa, fueled by wind and solar.", explains Martin. "On a large stretch of land, 140MW of Wind, 180MW of Solar and a 120MW Electrolyzer will be realized delivering green hydrogen to a 300mtpd (metric tons per day) ammonia synthesis plant." Later on, the production capabilities will be expanded doubling the production capacity. "The goal of the project is to produce green ammonia for local distribution and be the starting point for other green industries to follow the same path in the greater region."
While traditional wind turbines are planned, CENEC often has difficulties implementing them. "To enable the transportation of wind turbine parts to the elevated project areas, we often require large construction projects for the roads alone.", Martin points out. "More compact wind energy systems, easier to transport, would simplify our life a lot."
Smaller, more mobile systems – words that describe Kitekraft's technology. Driven by this fact and the vision of even cleaner energy, CENEC realized the potential of flying wind turbines early on and wants to set up Prieska Power Reserve as a steppingstone for this technology and establish a test center: AWESA, or Airborne Wind Energy South Africa. "This test center can be used in an early stage, paving the way for later technology expansion", Martin explains. "Once scaling effects, fleet management, and power output are understood completely, we can implement Kitekraft's technology at scale.", he says, already hinting at the larger systems that Kitekraft plans in the future.
As a grid level/utility player, CENEC definitely has interest in Kitekraft's flying wind turbines in the MW-range. CENEC's possible installation sites stretch all over South Africa, but also Namibia. By implementing renewable energy projects on a larger scale, the impact energy consumption has on the environment can be changed for the better. And in the end, a lot of sectors benefit from it being not only cleaner, but also the more cost-efficient way of generating electricity.
About CENEC
CENEC is a dynamic zero emission energy company founded in 2014. CENEC custom designs, builds, finances, and manages solar and wind energy plants, green hydrogen production, energy storage solutions and artificial intelligence power management in southern Africa. CENEC serves customers in the various sectors, such as agricultural, commercial, industrial, and microgrid applications which makes them the perfect partner for Kitekraft.
CENEC | registered Office at 20 Deane Avenue, Waverley, Bloemfontein 9301 FS, South Africa | +27 67 347 1548 | martin@cenec.com
About Kitekraft
Kitekraft builds flying wind turbines, a combination of a drone and kite. This enables wind power with material reduction of 90%,making it half the cost of conventional wind turbines. Kitekraft is a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich and YCombinator alumni.
KitekraftGmbH | Rudolf-Diesel-Str.26, 85521 Hohenbrunn, Germany | +49 89 92791994 | info@kitekraft.de
