A multibillion-dollar plan to expand South Africa’s electricity transmission network could throw a lifeline to the country’s corporate bond market as it struggles to recover from a post-pandemic slump. The National Transmission Company South Africa, a state-owned company that will operate separately from parent Eskom, said this week it plans to spend R112-billion on transmission capacity over the next five years.
The Lebalelo Water User Association (LWUA) has selected asset management company Sustainable Power Solutions (SPS) as the preferred bidder to deliver a renewable-energy solution for the first stage of the Olifants Management Model Programme (OMMP), a significant water infrastructure development programme in Limpopo. The OMMP, implemented by LWUA, is a public-private collaboration between government and the private sector, including mining companies and industrial users.
The 69 MW Msenge Emoyeni Wind Farm, located in Bedford in the Eastern Cape, has entered into commercial operation and is wheeling electricity into the national grid helping to green the electricity consumption of Sasol’s operations in the Free State The 16-turbine generation plant has been built by a consortium led by African Clean Energy Developments (ACED) and including African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) and Reatile Renewables.
The Danish and South African governments are partnering on a project to map the wind resources of the coal region of Mpumalanga, where access to the grid for new renewables projects is less constrained and where initiatives are under way to explore alternative livelihoods for workers and communities who could be affected by coal mine and power station closures. Known as ‘Wind Atlas of South Africa Phase 4 (WASA4)’, the initiative is being jointly funded by the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and is being carried out by researchers from the Danish Technical University, the South African National Energy Development Institute, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the University of Cape Town and the South African Weather Service.
South Africa has an ideal opportunity, and is well positioned, to leverage the potential of the emerging hydrogen economy and establish an integrated value chain. Amid global hydrogen economy conversations, South Africa has been working to create enabling policies and create an enabling environment for a hydrogen economy to thrive, a Creamer Media-hosted Hydrogen Economy webinar participants heard on Wednesday.
Home energy management company Plentify says its partnership with solar and electrical solutions installer Herholdts to distribute its SolarBot devices in South Africa, has helped customers to gain the maximum efficiency and cost savings from their solar systems.
With solar installation interest having stagnated since loadshedding was suspended in April, Plentify is driving the adoption of its SolarBot technology on the back of significant cost-savings that users can realise from fully using solar capacity and optimally discharging batteries.
The key problems in implementing renewable energy in Africa (including South Africa) are regulatory, participants in a panel discussion at Africa Oil Week (AOW) reported, on Wednesday. AOW is being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The issues were not so much the amount of regulatory compliance needed but, what was often much more serious, the dilatoriness of government departments in processing applications and issuing authorisations. South African black-owned renewable (mainly wind) energy company Seriti Green CEO Peter Venn reported that it could take anything from six to 16 years in South Africa from the acquisition of a site to the start of construction of a wind farm. The company currently had five projects spread across four South African provinces (plus projects in East Africa), worth billions of rands.
Led by solar PV, renewables are poised to transform electricity systems across the globe this decade, with the world on course to add more than 5 500 GW by 2030, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) ‘Renewables 2024’ report states. Such additions would increase global renewable electricity generation to over 17 000 TWh, which is roughly equal to the current combined electricity demand of China, the European Union, India and the US.
France is nearing the disbursement of a second loan to South Africa’s Treasury under the Just Energy Transition Partnership programme. “We are in the final stages of preparing a second loan,” adding to the €300 million ($329 million) it distributed about 18 months ago, David Martinon, France’s ambassador to South Africa, said in a speech in the town of eMalahleni, east of Johannesburg, on Wednesday.
A $21-billion increase over current investment levels is required to realise the off-grid potential of solar power to contribute to universal energy access, according to the latest ‘Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report’ (MTR) 2024, published on October 8 by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP) and the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (Gogla). The report shows that investment into the off-grid solar sector reached a high of $1.2-billion during 2022/23 period, largely driven by debt financing. Under the current trajectory, 660-million people are projected to still be without electricity by 2030, and a six-fold increase in solar investment is required to resolve this issue.
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