Author Archive for: Engineering News

Government and business have set a goal of increasing South Africa’s electricity generation capacity by 10.5 GW by the end of 2025 as part of ongoing collaborative efforts to tackle growth-sapping power disruptions and reduce the intensity and almost daily frequency of loadshedding by year-end. In a briefing held following the latest meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet and those senior business leaders who have committed to supporting government in overcoming its loadshedding, logistics and crime crises, the Presidency’s Rudi Dicks said the capacity could arise from multiple sources, including by recovering capacity from Eskom’s unreliable coal fleet.

Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) was going to be essential to achieve the goal of universal access to energy by 2030, both in Africa and globally. So highlighted World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme Lead Energy Specialist Raihan Elahi, on Wednesday. He was addressing a session of the Africa Energy Indaba, in Cape Town. “We’re really off track” regarding achieving universal access to energy by 2030, he pointed out. Worldwide, in 2020, 675-million people still had no access to electricity, while in 2021, 2.3-billion people had no access to clean cooking methods. These shortfalls existed against a background of increased vulnerability to climate shocks.

The number of hours of loadshedding in South Africa has been cut by 67% over the past three-and-a-half months, Energy Council of South Africa CEO James MacKay highlighted on Monday evening. He was participating in an event in Cape Town, hosted by UK innovation agency Innovate UK, and UK International Development, ahead of the Africa Energy Indaba. Loadshedding was the South African term for rotating scheduled power cuts, due to lack of generating capacity, imposed by national electricity utility Eskom. One of the reasons for the significant reduction in loadshedding hours has been the secondment, by the business sector, of experienced engineers to Eskom power stations. Further, renewable energy capacity in the country has increased rapidly.

Global technology group Hitachi Energy and BluVein – an innovator in dynamic charging technology – have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate the electrification of heavy haul mining fleets. Hitachi Energy’s advanced power electronics and digital charging technologies allow BluVein’s electric rail (e-rail) charging technology to deliver electricity safely and reliably to haul trucks of up to 400 t while transporting materials. 

South African imports of solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and inverters climbed to a record $3.8-billion last year, or about R70-billion, while imports of wind turbines began to recover following a two-year lull, analysis compiled by Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies senior economist Gaylor Montmasson-Clair shows. Imports in 2023 were double the $1.7-billion of 2022 and lifted the overall value of the three energy components imported over the ten years from 2014 to 2023 to above $10-billion.