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Mantashe open to meeting with opposition to seek short-term solutions to power crisis

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has described as “constructive” a proposal by the opposition Democratic Alliance for a meeting to discuss short-term solutions to the country’s ongoing load-shedding crisis. In his Budget Vote address, Mantashe outlined the initiatives his department was taking to ensure that new capacity was added and to close what Eskom estimates to be a 4 000 MW to 6 000 MW immediate shortfall.
May 19, 2022 by

Eskom confirms sabotage incidents at Tutuka

Power utility Eskom on May 19 confirmed an incident in which a cable was severed at the Tutuka power station this week while the power station was finalising preparations to return Unit 5 to service. “The damage to the cable had the effect of delaying the unit’s return to service by three days, as it took some time to locate the fault.
May 19, 2022 by

Fanaroff dismisses infrastructure versus localisation dichotomy as ‘factually wrong’

The “either-or” narrative pitting accelerated infrastructure delivery against localisation has been challenged by Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who played a central role in the development of the Steel Master Plan, which identifies localisation as one of several instruments to be used to revive the embattled sector. Speaking at a conference on the master plan hosted by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa, Fanaroff questioned the view emerging in some parts of government, business and academia that “localisation will add unnecessary costs, delays and quality issues” to the delivery of urgently needed infrastructure.
May 19, 2022 by

Pivot to citizen-owned renewables could save City Power, energy specialist says ahead of indaba

Johannesburg could turn around the lossmaking performance of City Power, end load-shedding and improve the green credentials of its manufacturing industry by purchasing 80% of its wholesale electricity from large-scale, citizen-owned solar and wind plants at a cost below that purchased from Eskom currently. This is the view of Clyde Mallinson, an energy specialist who has conducted extensive modelling on a future domestic electricity supply industry based exclusively on solar, wind and storage.
May 19, 2022 by

Wind energy industry reaffirms commitment to energy security

As the country once again contends with continued load-shedding, the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has reaffirmed the sector’s role in contributing to energy security. This is despite the recent announcement of delays to two renewable energy procurement rounds meant to unlock and deliver new generation capacity, SAWEA says.
May 18, 2022 by

Energy crisis requires policy reform to resolve it – Seifsa

The reasons for South Africa’s energy crisis are well known and include the State ignoring the warnings that electricity generation was falling short, maintenance was not being undertaken, the grid having deteriorated to the point of near collapse and corruption being allowed to continue unbated, industry organisation the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) COO Tafadzwa Chibanguza states. He says that, what is needed now, is focus on what can be done to finally begin addressing the problem.
May 18, 2022 by

Creecy offers provinces help to process EIAs for 100 MW embedded projects

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy reports that she has written to provincial environment MECs to enquire whether they require any assistance in processing environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for embedded-generation projects that could help relieve pressure on the country’s load-shedding-prone grid. Speaking ahead of her department’s Budget Vote, Creecy said her letter outlined the urgency of the projects, which are being pursued by miners and other energy intensive businesses in line with a recent market reform allowing sub-100 MW projects to proceed without a licence.
May 18, 2022 by

Eskom compiling ‘consolidated proposal’ for ending load-shedding crisis

Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has revealed that the utility is compiling a “consolidated proposal” on how to end the ongoing electricity crisis, including how to introduce much-needed new generation capacity in the shortest possible time. The State-owned utility estimates the current shortfall to be between 4 000 MW and 6 000 MW and has argued that, unless addressed, Eskom will continue to have limited headroom to address serious maintenance backlogs across its breakdown-prone coal fleet.
May 17, 2022 by

Kibo secures deal to develop, deploy CellCube-based energy storage solutions in Southern Africa

Energy company Kibo Energy has signed a rolling five-year agreement with energy storage company Enerox’s subsidiary CellCube to develop and deploy CellCube-based long-duration energy storage (LDES) solutions in selected sectors in Southern Africa. Kibo has been granted conditional exclusive rights, subject to successful proof of concepts, to the marketing, sales, configuration and delivery of CellCube’s vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) in the development of its LDES solutions in microgrid applications behind the electricity meter.
May 17, 2022 by

Stage 3 load-shedding planned for Tuesday night, for now

South Africa is still currently on track for Stage 3 load-shedding between 17:00 and 22:00 on Tuesday as a lack of capacity has left the country with evening power cuts for the rest of the week. Eskom had initially said there would Stage 3 load-shedding on Monday night as well, but had to escalate to Stage 4 after a unit tripped at Kusile power station, taking 720MW of generating capacity with it.
May 17, 2022 by