Enpower granted licence to trade electricity

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has granted Enpower Trading a licence to trade energy. This is the first issuing of such a licence in over a decade and brings to a total three licensed energy traders in the country. Enpower will now be able to help accelerate private investment in new electricity generation capacity in South Africa.
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Solidarity insists Eskom needs more skilled experts

Trade union Solidarity insists that power utility Eskom needs more personnel with critical skills, including for project management, maintenance and returning generation units to service at power stations. Solidarity says this comes as a senior executive with Eskom has denied that there is a skills shortage at Eskom, despite the utility, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and President Cyril Ramaphosa having acknowledged the problem
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Nersa reiterates that it has not approved Sasol’s 96% gas hike

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) says it has not approved an increase in the maximum price of pipeline gas to R133/GJ and insists that it “would not approve any increase which doubles its previously approved maximum gas price” of R68.39/GJ. It also insists that only Sasol Gas, which has confirmed that the 96% hike became effective from August 1, could respond to questions regarding the basis for the increase.
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Giant US corporation to use small modular nuclear reactors to power one of its plants

US-based global multinational materials science company Dow, most famous for its chemical production (concentrated in subsidiary Dow Chemicals), has announced that it had signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with US small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) company X-energy. Under that LoI, Dow and X-energy will work together to deploy the latter’s Xe-100 advanced high-temperature gas SMRs at a Dow industrial site on the Gulf of Mexico coast of the US. Dow will also take a minority shareholding in X-energy. This SMR nuclear power plant is expected to be operational by around 2030. It will provide both zero-carbon process heat and electricity to the Dow plant. The overall aim is to reduce Dow’s carbon emissions.
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Utilities that can provide services will thrive in a disrupted energy sector

Municipal utilities and distributors will have to “provide more than one product” and will have to develop new services and business models to effectively serve the market, such as by reselling and wheeling power between producers and consumers. These are some of the views presented during the first in a series of webinars jointly hosted by municipal organisation the Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities (AMEU) and industry organisation the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) on August 10 to prepare South Africa’s energy utilities for the changes and disruptions, experienced worldwide, in the energy industry.
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