The most important thing for the City of Tshwane is to rescue it from financial distress, and key to this mission is maintaining energy independence, executive mayor Cilliers Brink emphasised in a keynote address during the city’s Mayoral Energy Sector Roundtable, held in Pretoria, on October 31. He pointed out that there needed to be considerable progress in energy independence to achieve financial rescue, and this therefore required one integrated project. He highlighted that the city had appointed an Energy Task Team this year, which was considering a mix of energy solutions for Tshwane to mitigate loadshedding and reduce its reliance on Eskom.
Eskom’s head of distribution Monde Bala reports that Eskom and the National Treasury are hoping that the number of municipalities participating in the Eskom Municipal Debt Relief Support Programme could rise to 67 from the 28 already approve at the start of October. The deadline for applications was extended to October 31, from an initial deadline of the end of September, to allow for further voluntary applications.
Eskom has warned that it is likely to report another R23-billion-plus loss for its current financial year to the end of March 2024, having belatedly confirmed a loss of R24-billion (R12-billion) for its 2022/23 financial year, during which loadshedding was implemented on a record 280 days. Acting CEO Calib Cassim confirmed the dismal outlook during the release of the group’s results presentation, held seven months after the group’s official year-end. As with several previous reports, the statements were also qualified by the State-owned utility’s auditors.
The COP28 presidency, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) and the Global Renewables Alliance (GRA) have launched a joint report on the sidelines of the Pre-COP event in Abu Dhabi, titled ‘Tripling Renewable Power and Doubling Energy Efficiency by 2030: Crucial Steps Towards 1.5 °C’. The report, launched on October 30, provides actionable policy recommendations for governments and the private sector on how to increase global renewable energy capacity to at least 11 000 GW while also doubling yearly average energy efficiency improvements in the target period. This falls under the COP28 Presidency’s action agenda objective of fast-tracking a just and orderly energy transition to keep 1.5 °C within reach.
Speakers across a range of disciplines and domains have said that South Africa’s electricity market is transitioning to a more pluralistic market that will also include a much larger range of services to support generation, transmission, aggregation, grid balancing, energy trading, day-ahead and intra-day markets, besides others. During consulting firm EE Business Intelligence’s ‘Electricity market development: The transition to a multi-market model’ webinar, on October 26, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business Power Futures Lab chairperson Professor Anton Eberhard said South Africa’s electricity industry would never be the same again.
The Saldanha Multi-Purpose Terminal (MPT), managed by Transnet Port Terminals, is playing a strategic role in discharging imported wind turbine components that will go towards building 32 wind turbines in the Western Cape. Earlier this week, the terminal completed discharging the first consignment of wind turbine components as part projects selected as part of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) .
Following much contestation from environmental groups, Turkish energy company Karpowership’s South African subsidiary has succeeded in getting environmental authorisation for its Richards Bay environmental-impact assessment (EIA) application. This represents a critical milestone in Karpowership’s participation in the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP) and towards reaching financial close on the project.
India-based energy solutions brand Luminous Power Technologies and South Africa’s Hudaco Energy have teamed up to bring to a new range of applicable energy solutions to South Africa. With ambitions of securing a 25% share in the power back up market over the next three years, the new partnership will enable access to affordable and sustainable fit-for-purpose energy solutions, including inverters, batteries and solar solutions, as well as the newly-developed Lithium battery pack (LitCore), which will be introduced into the South Africa market in the first quarter of next year.
The Energy One Stop Shop (EOSS), officially launched by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel on July 27, is in the ramp-up phase of a four-stage process aimed at fast-tracking the regulatory approvals required for new self-generation projects and projects that will be connected to the local power grid. The creation of the EOSS is an acknowledgement by government that the red tape around energy projects is onerous, particularly as applications need to be submitted to as many as 14 different government departments, says EOSS chief director Lester Bouah.
Embedded electricity projects are increasing in size and complexity, owing to improvements in regulations. A wider variety of power solutions, capitalising on the benefits offered by independent power producers (IPPs), are available to address client requirements, says IPP Sturdee Energy executive director Andrew Johnson. He explains that the increase of the licence-exempt threshold for embedded generation in South Africa has led to larger on-site projects being a more viable option benefitting from economies of scale. Larger embedded projects within the 5 MW to 50 MW range which exist together with the option of wheeling are now a feasible option for customers.
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