Author Archive for: Engineering News

Nonprofit the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) says it held a “constructive” meeting with Eskom Distribution management on August 8 regarding compliance and registration requirements for low-voltage solar PV systems and battery energy storage systems (BESSs) installed in homes and businesses throughout South Africa. Outa informs that the meeting revealed that Eskom Distribution is still busy addressing a number of matters that will impact the conditions and needs pertaining to the utility’s compliance and registration requirements for low-voltage small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) systems connected behind-the-meter on a customer’s premises.

Scientists have developed lightning-produced ammonia in gas form – a new, more efficient method that is a step closer to the sustainable production of ammonia and, therefore, a transition to a hydrogen-based economy, says the University of Sydney school of engineering and biomedical engineering and Net Zero Institute’s Professor PJ Cullen. University of Sydney researchers have harnessed human-made lightning to develop a more efficient method of generating ammonia – one of the world’s most important chemicals. Ammonia is also the main ingredient of fertilisers that account for almost half of all global food production.

Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) have called on the South African government to urgently intervene to protect the national energy reform programme in the face of State-owned Eskom’s attempts to “undermine it”. The organisations argue that Eskom should promptly withdraw all legal challenges against the five electricity trading licences granted by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

Gold producer Pan African Resources has signed a ten-year renewables supply agreement with licensed electricity trader NOA Group Trading for 10% of its total yearly electricity load of 112 GWh. The agreement allows Pan African to source wheeled renewable energy from multiple generation facilities for its Barberton Mines, Evander Mines and Mogale Tailings Retreatment (MTR) operations in the Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces.

South Africa will seek jail time, fines and higher taxes for breaches of proposed rules to govern carbon emissions that will apply to almost all sectors of the economy. The proposed regulations, due to take effect at the beginning of next year, will see the setting of so-called carbon budgets for emitters of climate-warning greenhouse gases. A failure to meet reporting requirements could see executives imprisoned, while exceeding emission limits may trigger a higher carbon-tax rate. “We are the only ones that have this price across our whole economy” with the exception of waste and agriculture, said Jarredine Morris, co-head of the Africa Office of Carbon Trust, a carbon emissions consultancy. It will mean “we really have a way to have industry to start to do things rather than kick the can down the road,” she said.