NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 1 – Tea Machinery Engineering Company (TEMEC) has innovated different energy saving technologies as a way of mitigating against climate change while at the same time enhancing resilience.
Through the new technologies, TEMEC which is a subsidiary of Kenya Tea Development Agency Holding (KTDA(H) would reduce the amount of firewood used in drying green tea leaves and subsequently minimize deforestation.
The company General Manager, Michael Cherutich said tea manufacturing industry in Kenya was embracing innovative technologies for energy conservation and efficiency measures.
Cherutich said the move was aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change and creating resilience in the vital sector which supports more than 800,000 of small-holder farmers.
He said TEMEC developed machinery such as air pre-heater, driers, pre-sorters, winnowers, high efficiency withering fans, ID fans, boiler and log splitters to integrate energy efficient systems that contribute to over-all conservation of environment, energy and power.
Cherutich said the Fluid Bed Drier(FBD) is incorporated with a heat recovery system to maximize energy consumption while at the same time minimising heat losses thus resulting in less firewood usage at the boilers.
“FBD’s automated heated screw addresses the labour component in running the unit and makes use of flush steam to conserve energy,” explained the GM.
He said the boiler air pre-heater unit uses flue gases to pre-heat the combustion air fed into the boiler thus improving on boiler efficiency and reducing the firewood consumption.
“This an excellent energy saving technology because the flue could have otherwise been lost to the atmosphere,” he added.
He said the high efficiency withering fans took lesser time to achieve withers of green leaf yet they were very low power consumers.
Cherutich noted that the withering fans also reduced emissions of Green Houses Gases across all machinery applications in the factory.
He said the log/wood splitter machines chopped wood logs without loss of material which in turn retains the surface area for effective combustion of wood in the boiler.
“By extention this technology reduces deforestation as it reduces firewood consumption,” he said.
He said TEMEC, which is the engineering arm of Kenya Tea Development Agency offers value addition to the green leaf in tea factories.
Cherutich said as a strategic Engineering arm of KTDA, TEMEC performs its role of standardising quality of machinery services and products while moderating prices to the benefit of the tea farmer and the tea sub-sector in general.
“TEMEC has entered into partnership with companies specialising in solar technology to fabricate the structural support as part of the Green Energy Initiatives,” he revealed.
The GM said there were concerted efforts to encourage the use of renewable energy in the tea processing among other uses.
He said the company had plans to optimise its capacity to increase throughput which will in turn reduce process time to ensure energy conservation and reduced cost.
“TEMEC continues to play a critical role in Climate change Mitigation that has a backward linkage to conservation of trees in most of its operations,” added Cherutich.
He promised that the company will play a more subtle role in partnership with other tea and non tea companies and agencies in the areas of energy, food security and measures geared towards
mitigation of climate change.
He said the new technologies were environmentally friendly and helped farmers in managing costs of production while at the same time maintaining tea quality.
Cherutich said TEMEC continued to support small holder tea farmers through mechanisation of tea plucking, supplying the machines
and providing training for the plucking machines.
