Japan’s PM expresses clear support for nuclear and renewable energy

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has affirmed that nuclear energy is as important to the country’s ‘Green Transformation’ (GX) as is renewable energy. He was addressing, via video, the second meeting of the country’s Green Transformation Implementation Council, “World Nuclear News” has reported. “[R]enewable energy and nuclear power are decarbonised energies that are indispensable for promoting GX,” affirmed Kishida. He asked the Council to submit a report, by the end of this year, “on all measures, including the institutional framework for evaluating these as options for the future, and how the parties concerned should make efforts to further deepen public understanding”. The report should present “concrete conclusions”.
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Kibo issues RFP to assess feasibility of replacing coal with biofuel for power generation

AltX- and Aim-listed Kibo Energy’s share price on the JSE rose by more than 9% on August 25, after announcing that it had started a request for proposals (RFP) process to investigate the feasibility of replacing fossil fuel (coal) with renewable biofuel. This followed an extensive review of the company’s operations and assets, with the company planning  to dispose of all its coal mining assets, but still retaining the associated energy generation projects through the introduction of innovative biofuel technology.
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Nigeria seeking extra $410bn for energy transition plan including gas

Nigeria needs at least $10-billion in additional funding per year to reach net zero by 2060 in a plan that would involve gas as a transition fuel, officials said while launching the nation’s energy transition plan on Wednesday. The effort aims also to expand power access to all of Nigeria’s 200 million citizens by 2030, a move officials said was essential to ensure a fair transition for developing nations.
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Few municipalities in a position to implement embedded generation processes

Even though government paved the way for municipalities to generate or procure their own electricity from independent power producers (IPPs) a little under two years ago, only 25% of them are equipped with either a basic or comprehensive small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) process, or are putting one in place.

A further 25% of municipalities do not have the internal capacity to establish or manage these processes, but may come do so with some support, while the remaining 50% of municipalities are not in a state to handle any additional responsibility, owing to long-standing financial difficulty or mismanagement issues, Sustainable Energy Africa director Mark Borchers noted this week.

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Wits-developed minigrid solution set for retail debut

A homegrown expandable minigrid solution that researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) have been developing, testing and refining for several years has now been fully commercialised to be marketed and sold locally and throughout Africa as the Peco Powerbrick. The innovation is based on the pioneering work of academics and students at the university’s School of Electrical and Information Engineering who, under the direction of Professor Willie Cronje, have been working on an expandable and affordable offgrid solution for low-income African households since 2014.
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