Sasol, ArcelorMittal study green hydrogen, carbon capture projects for Saldanha and Vanderbijlpark

JSE-listed group Sasol and ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) have announced a joint development agreement to advance studies into two potential green-economy projects, including the potential production of green hydrogen in Saldanha Bay, which could be used to produce green steel. The two companies will also pursue a Vaal carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) study, whereby renewable electricity and green hydrogen could be used to convert captured carbon from AMSA’s Vanderbijlpark steel plant into sustainable fuels and chemicals.
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Emira completes energy performance certification for 31 buildings

JSE-listed real estate investment trust Emira Property Fund has completed the certification of 31 of its buildings to become compliant with new Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) regulations ahead of the December 7 deadline. The company will also voluntarily certify a further 23 non-mandated buildings by March 31, 2023, says Emira COO Ulana van Biljon.
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Green hydrogen seen competing with LNG within a decade

The cost of clean hydrogen will fall to that of liquefied natural gas in a decade as global efforts to replace fossil fuels accelerate, according to Europe’s biggest operator of gas infrastructure. “Green hydrogen today is not economically competitive against alternative energy sources, which will not be the case in ten years’ time,” Thomas Baudlot, chief executive officer of energy solutions for Asia-Pacific at French utility Engie SA, said in an interview. The fuel is “very much part of the strategy of Engie.”
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Necsa reports much reduced losses and that it is achieving turnaround

The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) was successfully turning itself around, the State-owned entity’s CEO, Loyiso Tyabashe, has told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy. He also pointed out that the 2021/2022 financial year (FY) had been a time of transition from Necsa’s previous strategy and corporate plan to a new strategy, focused on growth. At the start of the financial year, Necsa had been forecast to make a loss for the year of R155-million. At the end of the financial year, the loss actually recorded had been much less, at R23.2-million. During the previous financial year, it had suffered a loss of R318.74-million. In FY 2019/2020 the loss had been R190.91-million and in FY 2018/2019, Necsa had seen a loss of R12.46-million.
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Sabia tackles biogas promotion with new vigour

The Southern African Biogas Industry Association (Sabia) has laid out its industry advancement priorities after undertaking an in-depth review of the industry’s challenges over the last 18 months.

Some of these challenges include government direction on biogas, access to funding, regulations and feed-in tariffs, developing the market and limited available research.

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Eskom to suspend loadshedding for the weekend

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.
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Fire causes ‘significant damage’ to unfinished Kusile generating unit

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.”
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Eskom expects inaugural leasing of grid-ready Mpumalanga land to unlock at least 2GW of …

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.
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Hitachi secures Inga-Kolwezi transmission line service agreement

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.
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Interest in Nersa hearings waning

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.  
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