Author Archive for: Engineering News

In this article, JUWI Renewables South Africa MD Richard Doyle shares insights from a recent Africa Energy Forum panel discussion during which experts from the renewable energy and mining sectors explored ways to overcome challenges to and accelerate the adoption of renewable energy in mining.

The world’s least developed countries rely on external sources for almost three-quarters of their energy investment but may pay up to seven times more than developed countries to access international capital markets, which is a major impediment to ramping up investments in renewables, United Nations secretary-general António Guterres says.  With the release of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (Unctad’s) ‘World Investment Report 2023’, on July 5, he has called for a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) stimulus, among other things, to increase long-term and affordable financing for developing countries “to enable them to invest at scale in the transition to renewable energy”.  

A new and updated edition of the loadshedding code of practice, which includes up to 16 stages of loadshedding, has been finalised by and expert group and delivered to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for approval. The current NRS 048-9 edition, known as Edition 2, has protocols governing up to eight stages of loadshedding, which would involve rotational cuts of up to 16 hours in a 32-hour cycle. Edition 3 has increased the number of stages to 16, with the highest stage involving 24 hours of loadshedding in a 32-hour cycle.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a specialist agency of the United Nations, announced on Tuesday that Japan’s plan to release treated water, currently stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP), into the sea, was consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards. The Fukushima Daiichi NPP, owned and operated by Tokyo Power Company (Tepco), was wrecked by the tsunami triggered by the massive Tōhoku earthquake in March 2011.  The earthquake knocked out the primary cooling systems for the NPP, and the tsunami disabled the backup cooling systems for three of the NPP’s reactors, causing them, despite being in shutdown mode, to overheat and suffer meltdowns. The reactors had to be cooled by pumping water into them, which contaminated the water, which was then collected and stored in a rapidly-constructed tank farm at the NPP.

Consider a large solar photovoltaic (PV) plant with 300 000 PV modules or panels as they are commonly called. How do you know whether they meet the quality or power output standards specified by the manufacturer? You will need to test 300 to 500 of them on a plant of this size, preferably before installation or on site if they are already installed. With solar PV being one of South Africa’s fastest growing industries, it is essential to independently test the quality, performance and durability of a sample of modules at every plant. The size of the sample is determined by the size of the plant according to specific standards.