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.
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
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.
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.
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.
The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) is inviting renewable energy researchers to showcase the latest developments in wind power at its yearly wind energy academic conference WindAc Africa.
To be hosted from October 11 to 13 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the fifth edition of WindAc Africa recognises the pivotal role that wind energy research and technology development plays in the renewable energy sector, as it leads the way for advancement and progress, which is especially essential at a time when South Africa is looking to renewables to meet the growing demand for clean energy supply.
Stage 2 load-shedding might be required at short notice from 16:00 to midnight on Wednesday. Breakdowns at the Majuba, Tutuka and Kriel power stations have put a severe strain on the power generation system, Eskom said.
US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) believes it is well positioned to feed projects into the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), which was established between South Africa and several developed countries, including the US, in 2020, and which is expected to progress towards implementation later this year. The JETP includes an initial offer of $8.5-billion – to be provided by France, Germany, the US, the UK and the European Union – to help fund South Africa’s transition from coal to renewables, while protecting workers and communities reliant on the coal value chain.
Two separate opinion polls undertaken in Germany have both shown that the greater number of those polled want the life of the country’s three remaining nuclear power reactors to be extended, “World Nuclear News” has pointed out. The three reactors are currently scheduled to be shut down at the end of this year, for political and not technical reasons. Following the tsunami-triggered nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan in March 2011, the German government of then Chancellor Angela Merkel passed legislation, later that same year, to phase out all nuclear power in the country by the end of this year (2022). At that time, Germany had 14 operating nuclear power reactors, providing some 25% of the country’s electricity.
Eskom has submitted a tariff restructuring application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) in which the utility is proposing a major overhaul of the prevailing retail tariff structure, including a separation of energy, network and service charges and the introduction of dynamic time-of-use pricing. The application was submitted on August 5 and Eskom is requesting that it be implemented on April 1 next year, together with any adjustments to the tariff rate arising from the regulator’s parallel adjudication of its latest multiyear price determination (MYPD) application,
INDUSTRY NEWS
WHERE TO FIND US
Address
9 Yellow Street
Botshabelo Industrial Area
Botshabelo, Free State
Call / Email Us
Tel: +27 (0) 51 534 1651
Email: info@transfix.co.za
