Converting bush to clean energy
The Minister of Agriculture, Water & Forestry (MAWF), John Mutorwa earlier this week, visited the Teufelsbach farm on invitation of the Ohlthaver & List Group’s subsidiaries, Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) and Organic Energy Solutions.
The Minister was officially introduced to O&L Energy’s latest innovation that converts invader bush to energy.
In light of its vision metric of reducing its carbon footprint by 20% by the year 2019, the Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group through its subsidiary O&L Energy officially introduced its bush-thinning project which will not only eventually replace 80% of the current 3600 tons of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) used by Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL), at its operating plant in Windhoek, but will also benefit the country’s agricultural sector at large.
Mutorwa and the Director of Forestry, Joseph Hailwa, as well as Namibia’s media fraternity were special invited guests to the site at Teufelsbach to witness the process of bush-thinning, from the harvesting to the chipping of unwanted bushes in the area.
This project conducted and managed by Organic Energy Solutions, a unit of O&L Energy will see the problematic bush encroachment removed for the generation of energy.
Organic Energy Solutions Director, Eike Krafft said, “Bush encroachment is a huge problem in Namibia, with about 30 million hectares of land invaded by unwanted bush. This makes it difficult for animal feed to grow, for cattle movement, and ultimately diverts into a big problem for local farmers. However, on the flip side, this largely unwanted bush represents an energy source that is not utilized in Namibia. So basically we are turning a problem into an opportunity, and in turn finding energy solutions for the country. We take the bush and turn it into something usable and produce industrial products.”
According to Krafft, the energy generated with the harvested invader bush at Teufelsbach eventually ends up in the recently purchased and installed N$50 million bio-mass boiler at NBL which is used to generate heat energy as opposed to High Fuel Oil (HFO) used over the years.
NBL is also Organic Energy Solutions’ main customer at the moment, with tons of woodchips delivered daily to the NBL plant in Windhoek for the operation of its bio-mass boiler. The boiler forms part of NBL’s strategy in reducing its carbon footprint.
