Archive for month: October, 2023

All the critical minerals necessary for all renewable and battery energy technologies are found in Africa, highlighted consultancy and data company Rystad Energy senior partner and head of analysis Per Magnus Nysveen. He was addressing the Critical Minerals Africa conference, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Tuesday. Nysveen defined renewable energy as encompassing geothermal as well as solar and wind power. Batteries were also low carbon energy sources and included both mobile (vehicle) and stationary applications.

Financial services firm Nedbank has concluded a R2.1-billion Green Private Power Tier 2 Bond, listed on the sustainability segment of the JSE, with the proceeds to focus on notionally funding private renewable energy projects in South Africa. Private renewable energy power projects refer to commercial and utility-scale renewable energy projects with private corporate offtakers. These projects will play a pivotal role in advancing renewable energy capacity, accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and lending support to the underlying corporates’ own sustainability objectives.

African National Congress President Cyril Ramaphosa claims that South Africa “has turned a definite corner as far as loadshedding is concerned”, adding that the levels and frequency of loadshedding are expected to improve during the fourth quarter. In closing remarks following the party’s National Executive Committee meeting, Ramaphosa attributed this claim to the “return of Kusile units, embedded generation by private households and businesses, and demand management”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated that his administration wasn’t moving to privatize state-owned companies as the government initiates reforms to clean up their balance sheets and revive their performance. Private-sector investment was necessary to mobilize funds for economic infrastructure given the government’s limited fiscal space, Ramaphosa said at a meeting of his party, the African National Congress. The involvement would be “subject to stringent regulations,” which would enable energy security and exporting of critical goods.

The Eastern, Northern and Western Cape provinces have agreed to team up in a bid to position South Africa as a global hub for the production of green hydrogen and derivative products, as well as to produce the components required in the green hydrogen value chain, ahead of the finalisation of the long-awaited Green Hydrogen Commercialisation Strategy. The three coastal provinces are all playing host to potential multi-billion rand green-hydrogen projects and have been working separately on strategies and roadmaps in an effort to capture the jobs, growth and industrialisation opportunities that could flow should the projects materialise.