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Finance ‘sea change’ needed for Africa to meet $190bn/y energy investment goal

Achieving Africa’s energy and climate goals by 2030, including universal access, will require a more than doubling in energy investment this decade, rising to a yearly rate of $190-billion from 2026 to 2030, a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report shows. It will also require the connection of 90-million people a year, triple the rate of recent years, if Africa is to deliver modern energy services to the 600-million people who currently lack access.
June 20, 2022 by

Delay gas procurement until policy reflects big cost and emission shifts – study

Before moving ahead with the procurement of gas-fired generation, South Africa should update both its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity and its Gas Master Plan to reflect prevailing renewables and battery costs, as well as the country’s carbon constraints, a new Meridian Economics study argues. Titled ‘Hot Air About Gas: An Economic Analysis of the Scope and Role for Gas-Fired Power Generation in South Africa’, the study warns that the current policy approach of anchoring gas demand in the domestic electricity sector is premised on outdated cost and emission assumptions.
June 20, 2022 by

Climate change conference president in South Africa to discuss just energy transition

The President of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Alok Sharma of the UK, arrived in South Africa on Sunday, to support the implementation of the South Africa Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). He will depart the country on Tuesday. The JETP was announced at COP26, which took place last November and which was hosted by the UK. (Sharma will hold the presidency until COP27, which will be hosted by Egypt and is expected to take place in this coming November.) Apart from South Africa, the JETP member countries are the European Union, France, Germany, the UK and the US.
June 20, 2022 by

Schneider targets more licence agreements to accelerate localisation in South Africa

Energy management and automation multinational Schneider Electric is planning to partner with more South African manufacturers as part of a strategy geared towards accelerating the expansion of its domestic market presence, while increasing local content. Global CFO Hilary Maxson told Engineering News during a recent visit to South Africa that the group would pursue licence agreements with local companies, which would produce Schneider Electric -certified products using specialised components, but with the goal of progressively localising the solution over time.
June 20, 2022 by

Eskom has 32 GW of grid capacity, but not where most renewables investors want it

Eskom acknowledges that transmission constraints remain an obstacle to the introduction of new renewables generation, but the utility also highlights that 32 GW of grid capacity is immediately available to those independent power producers (IPPs) willing to build projects outside of the country’s prime solar and wind regions. Renewables developers have hitherto targeted the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces, owing to the fact that the solar and wind resources in these regions are among the best globally and superior to those in South Africa’s other six provinces.
June 17, 2022 by

Faced with government ineptitude, Cape Town is going it alone

 As South Africa’s government struggles to provide sufficient electricity, public transport and other basic services, the country’s main tourist hub is increasingly going it alone.

Cape Town, which has been led by the opposition Democratic Alliance since 2006, is forging ahead with plans to secure its own energy supply. It’s also investigating the feasibility of taking over the city’s commuter rail network — currently operated by a State-owned company — and playing a role in getting the harbor to run more efficiently. And it’s hired more than 1 000 of its own security officers to complement the work of the police force, which it accuses of doing a dismal job of fighting gang violence and other crime.

June 17, 2022 by