Due to lower weekend demand, loadshedding will be suspended at midnight on Friday, Eskom says. Since Wednesday evening a generation unit each at Arnot and Majuba power stations were returned to service while a generating unit each at Duvha, Hendrina, Lethabo and Tutuka power stations were taken offline for repairs.
A fire damaged one of the generating units at Kusile Power Station that has not yet been synchronised to the grid, Eskom said on Friday. The fire occurred at a gas air heater on 17 September at unit 5, which is in the process of being commissioned. The power utility said that while its fire protection systems extinguished the fire, inspections showed “significant damage”. Eskom said it was inspecting the damage to determine what needs be repaired. At the same time, it is seeking to establish what caused the fire. “All efforts are being applied to expedite the repair of the [gas air heater] to enable the progress of commissioning of the unit and synchronisation to the national grid,” said Eskom. “At this time repair duration is speculative and based on utility experience, actual duration will be determined once the scope of work has been finalised.”
Four independent power producers have been named as successful bidders for the lease of grid-ready Mpumalanga land, which is being made available by Eskom as part of efforts to accelerate the development of wind, solar and storage projects in the province – investments that should, in time, help lower the risk of loadshedding and provide new employment and business opportunities in the region as coal plants are decommissioned. The entities identified as having secured the 25- to 30-year property leases for parcels covering a total of 6 184 ha of land near the Majuba and Tutuka coal stations are HDF Energy South Africa, Red Rocket, Sola Group and Mainstream Renewable Power Developments South Africa.
Electricity equipment multinational Hitachi Energy has signed a long-term service agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) Société Nationale d’Electricité (SNEL) to secure power supply in the country’s most important power transmission asset – the Inga-Kolwezi high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link. The link supplies up to 1 000 MW of emission-free electricity from the Inga Falls hydropower plant in the far west of the country to the Kolwezi mining region in the south. With a length of 1 700 km, it is the longest HVDC link in Africa.
Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer talks about the public hearings that were due to be held this week by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), but which had to be rescheduled owing to a poor response; what Nersa will do next; and the overall trend of waning interest in Nersa hearings.
Road transport is the most prioritised area to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to leading e-commerce and manufacturing companies in Europe. A new report carried out by market research company Ipsos and vehicle manufacturer Volvo Trucks shows that companies are willing to pay more for transport suppliers with lower CO2 emissions. On behalf of Volvo Trucks Ipsos interviewed 100 large e-commerce and manufacturing companies in eight European countries about their demand for fossil fuel free transports in future procurements. The countries included in the survey were the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.
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