While loadshedding is driving the uptake of embedded electricity solutions, it is also deemed obstructive by renewable-energy solutions company Solareff, owing to the financial implications for clients seeking to invest in large, industrial rooftop or ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. “We need our clients to be in a financially sound position and loadshedding has a negative effect on most clients’ finances. However, demand is substantial in light of the continued intermittent power supply and the high cost of electricity, as companies are now realising that embedded solar generation is the most cost-effective option,” Solareff CEO Jaco Botha tells Engineering News.
While the City of Cape Town’s (CoCT’s) small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) capacity is ahead of the curve compared with other local municipalities, there is still a lot of work to be done, says CoCT Energy MMC Councillor Beverley van Reenen. “With State-owned power utility Eskom’s incredibly precarious position, every bit helps, but SSEG’s impact on the electricity supply deficit would be greater at household level if households have storage capacity. If the SSEG uptake country-wide is drastically upscaled, it holds the potential to reduce the demand on the grid.
Eskom’s latest Transmission Development Plan (TDP2022) includes assumptions that deviate materially from those contained in the outdated Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 (IRP2019) and points to the need for a significant acceleration in grid-related investments to facilitate the integration of 53 GW of new, mostly renewables, generation capacity over the next ten years. Covering the period from 2023 to 2032, the latest edition of the plan, which is published yearly, points to the need for the construction of 14 218 km of new high-voltage transmission lines over the period.
Eskom’s proposal to restructure renewable energy tariffs will impede growth in private sector investment in renewable energy projects and destroy intentions to wheel surplus energy through Eskom’s grid, as doing so will hold little financial gain, Meridian Economics MD Grove Steyn has said.
Speaking at public hearings held by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) on October 27, he said that, despite the need to balance Eskom’s revenue collection efforts with the need for a rapid rollout of renewable energy projects, the issue of restructuring tariffs was “very complex” and that loadshedding was the most pressing issue that needed to be resolved in the immediate term.
Beer manufacturer Heineken this week unveiled a 6.5 MW solar power plant at its Sedibeng brewery, in Midvaal.
The solar power plant was built as part of the company’s Build a Better World initiative and would contribute to the group’s efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.
South Africa expects an $8.5-billion climate-finance package that it’s negotiating with some of the world’s richest nations to attract significant additional funds to help it transition away from using coal to generate electricity. The government is discussing a wide-ranging energy transition plan for the next five years with the UK, US, Germany, France and the European Union as a step toward securing the funds, which will pay for part of the needed investment laid out in the proposal, according to Daniel Mminele, a former central banker appointed to lead the talks for South Africa.
South Africa and Indonesia will receive a combined $1-billion from the Climate Investment Funds to replace some of their coal-fired power plants with renewable energy facilities, part of global efforts to cut planet-warming emissions. The allocation of $500-million each to the coal-dependent countries will come in the form of “concessional,” or low cost, finance, the World Bank-affiliated fund said in a statement Thursday.
Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront was planning to double its solar energy capacity as part of its response to the ongoing power cuts imposed, on a rolling basis, across the country by national electricity utility Eskom, and known in South Africa as loadshedding. This was stated by V&A Waterfront (V&A) CEO David Green at a media briefing on Wednesday. He reported that the directors and executives of the V&A had determined that loadshedding was likely to be a long-term problem, given that so much of Eskom’s generating fleet was old and needed replacement. Current installed solar capacity at the waterfront was 2 MW. This would be increased to 4 MW in the near future, although he did not give a timeframe. And there was the potential for even greater solar energy capacity to be installed in the coming years.
The NPA’s Investigating Directorate have arrested former Eskom acting CE Matshela Koko, his wife Mosima and his stepdaughter Koketso Choma on charges of corruption. The charges relate to a multibillion-rand contract Eskom entered into with Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) in 2015. ABB subcontracted to a local company, Impulse International, where Choma was a shareholder. She received R30-million from the deal, some of which then flowed to Mosima Koko.
The drop in Russian fossil fuel exports after its Ukraine invasion this year will transform the global energy landscape for decades and can help to hasten a green energy transition, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook acknowledges the economic hit from reduced supplies of Russian oil, natural gas and coal but is keeping an environmental best case scenario in which no investment in new fossil fuel projects is needed.
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