Zimbabwe faces prolonged power outages after a surge in electricity imports from neighboring South Africa overloaded its network and caused generating plants to fail, Energy Minister Soda Zhemu said. The surge caused a nationwide blackout in the early hours of Monday, as it affected output at the Kariba hydropower plant and the coal-fired Hwange facility, Zhemu said by phone from the capital, Harare.
Legislation curtailing and, ultimately, banning the diversion of organic waste to municipal landfills is expected to support the development of South Africa’s biogas industry, which remains nascent with only 28 such projects having be built and commissioned to date. South Africa National Waste Management Strategy of 2020 sets a long-term goal of ‘zero waste’ to landfills and includes targets of lowering waste diversions to landfills by 45% within five years, 55% in 10 years and 70% in 15 years.
Civil society organisations International Rivers and WoMin African Alliance have published a report that they say provides, for the first time, an independent and authoritative account of the true cost of the Inga 3 hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for South Africa. The report’s conclusions are “dire yet clear” in that offtaking hydropower from Inga 3 will be “too costly and an unmitigated disaster” for the country, the organisations state. South Africa intends to procure at least 2 500 MW of hydropower produced at Inga 3, but construction on that project has yet to start.
Modified consumer behaviour and the implementation of energy-efficient solutions can reduce electricity demand, while also enabling South Africans to save money on their energy bill, says South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) energy efficiency and corporate communications GM Barry Bredenkamp. Considering the constrained energy supply, every individual must play his or her part in reducing electricity use and help reduce the pressure on the national electricity grid, he says.
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