Meteo Rwanda to provide tailored weather forecast for peat power plant in Gisagara district
Rwanda Meteorology Agency (Meteo Rwanda) is considering providing tailored weather forecast for HQ Power Plant based in Gisagara District.
HQ Power project manage a concession of 4,200 ha located in Southern Rwanda, in Gisagara District alongside the Akanyaru river and the border with Burundi. Unlike other foreign peatlands, the peat production does not request any forest clearcutting in Rwanda. The project heavily relies on the weather because the peat harvesting is done utilising the dry method.
Meteo Rwanda provides the weather forecast for different time scales downscaled at district level. Given the big size of the district, HQ Power Plant requested Meteo Rwanda to provide the customized weather forecast specific to the peat extraction sites. The management at the peat power plant said that this forecast can help to reduce losses incurred from bad weather.
Jean-Christophe Besnie General Manager at HQ POWER - YUMN Limited said that they need accurate and customised weather and climate information which can help them to take appropriate decisions to reduce losses from bad weather.
“We need timely and accurate weather forecast that can help us to know whether it is raining and at what time it will rain. We can rely on this information to plan our operations accordingly like deploying our workforce, harvesting the peat which is ready for use, storing enough peat to be used in future once we know the bad weather will persist among others”.
From 16th to 18th November 2022, a team of Meteo Rwanda’s staff conducted the training of staff at HQ Power Plant on the use of new customized weather products for renewable energy. The forecast being tested before official use will be based on coordinates of peat extraction sites. Once approved by both sides, it will be validated for official use.
Furthermore, Meteo Rwanda installed the full Automatic Weather Station at Mamba site few meters from the peat plant which will provide real time weather information that shall be used while producing the weather forecast for the peat site.
The HQ Power Plant employs around 3000 workers whose deployment heavily relies on the expected weather. Once the forecast indicates that it will rain before and afternoon, the power plant could decide not deploying their workforce which in turn affects their energy production capacity.