1. Product Description:- Concrete poles and piles are made from cement, sand, gravel reinforcement or prestressing wire and some additives. Concrete poles are used for transmission and distribution lines, for communication lines, for trolley lines and for lighting poles. Concrete piles are used for foundations of buildings, piers for bridges, foundations for heavy machinery, elevated bridges and high ways, parts for concrete structure.
2. Market Potential:- In most cases concrete poles are substitutes for wood and iron poles. In our country transmission, distribution, communication lines and street lights use wood or iron poles. Cutting trees for harvesting wood poles further aggravates the deforestation problems of the country. Iron poles are imported from abroad thus consuming our scarce foreign exchange resources. The use of concrete poles, therefore, saves out forests and conserve our foreign exchange. Besides these poles serve for a much longer time than wood poles. Use of concrete poles for transmission and distribution lines has been expanding in many parts of the country during the last 10 years. This trend should continue for conserving our forests. Concrete poles are extremely heavy and as a result are very expensive to transport. Thus, if economies of scale allow, their production should be distributed in different areas to avoid excessive transport cost. As the Amhara Region is one of the largest regions in the country, it requires many and long transmission, distribution and communication lines and also many lighting poles, The existing and future demand for concrete poles will justify the establishment of one or two concrete and pile poles making plant in the Region.
3. Source of Raw material:- The main raw materials are cement, gravel, sand and wire. The first three will be secured from local sources and the last will be imported.
4. Process and Technology:- There are two technologies for producing concrete poles and piles-vibration process and the pre-cast spinning (centrifugal compaction) process. The spinning process is believed to be better than the vibration process. For this project idea, the spinning process is taken to estimate costs and production volume. The main stages in this process are mixing of cement and aggregate; wire straightening, cutting and assembling; mould setting; concrete feeding; spinning; steam curing; stripping; indicating water curing; air curing and inspection. More than 22 sets of machines are used for producing concrete poles and piles. The main ones are batch plant, concrete injection plant, spinning machine, wire straightening and cutting machine, wire-caging stand, wire heading machine, mould rolling device, overhead cranes, etc.
5. Estimated Investment:- For a plant which will produce 9000 concrete poles per year in a one shift operation, the estimated investment will be:-
Building 2,200 m2 at Birr 1000/m2 …….. = Birr 2,200,000
Machinery and Equipment….………………= Birr 25,000,000
Working capital …………………………….= Birr 800,000
Total = Birr 28,000,000
6. Benefits:- saves foreign exchange, contributes to the conservation of forest resources, utilizes local resources (sand and gravel) introduces new skills and technology.
7. Location:- Bahir Dar, Combolcha