An energy crisis is seeping into South Africa’s food supply

The most severe power cuts ever experienced in South Africa are threatening food and water supplies and disrupting the lives of millions of people, including chicken farmers. In the poultry industry, electricity outages have forced factories to pause round-the-clock operations for as long as half a day at a time. As a result, over ten-million birds designated for slaughter are still alive and consuming feed, creating a backlog that companies fear they won’t be able to fix.
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Transparency-boosting Battery Passport proof-of-concept launched at Davos

Multistakeholder organisation the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) launched a proof-of-concept for its Battery Passport at the World Economic Forum’s yearly meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 18.

With the aim of establishing a sustainable battery value chain by 2030, the GBA’s Battery Passport is proposed as a key to facilitating the rapid scaling of sustainable, circular and responsible battery value chains to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement through electrification of the transport and power sectors.

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Wind body wants independent assessment of grid constraints in Cape provinces after shovel-ready …

The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) is hoping to convince Eskom to conduct an independent technoeconomic assessment of whether there is potential to extract more capacity from the constrained grid in the Cape provinces after none of the 23 wind projects that participated in the most recent public procurement round were appointed as a preferred bidder. In December, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe announced the appointment of only six utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, with a combined capacity of just 860 MW, as preferred bidders, following Bid Window Six (BW6) of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
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Zambia signs $2bn solar power development pact with UAE

Zambia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a $2-billion agreement to build solar plants in the Southern African country that will increase its generation base by more than half. The joint venture between Zambia’s state-owned power utility, Zesco, and a UAE government-owned renewable energy company, Masdar, targets the development of 2 000 MW of solar power projects, President Hakainde Hichilema said in a statement on his Facebook page.
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