The gas-solar hybrid: the field that powers itself.
An isolated oil site produces energy and lacks it: it flares gas it doesn’t use while importing generator diesel — the most expensive, most carbon-intensive electricity in the whole chain. The hybrid micro-grid solves both problems at once.
There is a paradox at the heart of isolated oil fields: they produce energy and run short of it. The associated gas that rises with the crude is flared — burned off, unused — while the pumps, the camp and the mini-refinery run on generator diesel, trucked in at great cost. A field that flares pays twice.
The principle: sun by day, gas by night
EnerTchad’s hybrid micro-grid assembles three building blocks: solar during the day — Chad has some of the world’s best sunshine, over 6 kWh/m²/day in the north —, associated gas for night-time generation and back-up, and the battery that smooths the hand-over between the two. Every site — field, mini-refinery, depot — becomes self-sufficient: autonomy is the rule, because running a line from the central grid makes no sense at the end of the track.
The first beneficiary: the barrel itself
At EnerTchad, renewables are not a business line but a means: we remain a purely oil company — one that decarbonises its own operations. Every litre of generator diesel avoided removes the most expensive, most carbon-intensive electron in our operations; every m³ of associated gas put to work brings us closer to the end of routine flaring, one of our dated commitments. The barrel’s carbon intensity falls, and so does its cost — sustainability you can read in the operating account.
Three geographies, three recipes
Chad’s energy map dictates the mix. In the Saharan north, record sunshine pairs with sustained winds (7 to 8 m/s in the BET massifs): the solar-wind-storage trio keeps isolated sites reliable day and night. Across the Sahelian belt, solar excels over the population centres — N’Djamena, Abéché, Mongo — with the harmattan as a seasonal boost. In the Sudanian south, where wind is weak but the crude is, the gas-solar hybrid carries the transition: gas flared today becomes the electricity of the fields and oil towns.
Part of a continental movement
This approach does not start from scratch: Chad already hosts a national solar plant (~32 MW, sector data) and sits within Desert to Power, the African Development Bank initiative targeting 10 GW of Sahel solar for 250 million people by 2030. GreenTech aligns with that momentum — for its own energy needs, serving operations, not an electricity trading business.
A field that flares pays twice: it burns its gas and buys its electricity. The hybrid gives it both back.
Run like the rest of the field
A hybrid micro-grid is a living system: forecasting sunshine, arbitrating between battery and gas, protecting equipment — a data problem as much as an electrical one. It will run on the same L1-L4 digital architecture as the rest of our operations: sensors on site, model-driven optimisation, auditable decisions.
As with everything we publish: EnerTchad is a company in formation, and the capacities described are GreenTech pole objectives — no assets in operation to date. The detail lives on the Energy transition page, alongside our 2030 targets. But the course is set: in Chad, the field’s energy will be produced by the field.