South Africa’s State-owned power utility Eskom said it’s in talks with government ministries over private and foreign options to fund a R390-billion expansion of its transmission network as more renewable generation comes online. Eskom supplies more than 80% of electricity to the continent’s most industrialised nation and has failed to meet demand, resulting in blackouts that have crippled the economy. The utility also owns, manages and maintains the transmission system and plans to build 14 218 kilometers of power lines over the next decade, more than three times what it has installed over the past 10 years.
Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the halt in loadshedding over recent weeks; what South Africans should expect for the higher-demand winter period; and the longer-term outlook for South Africa’s electricity sector.
Selecting a generator set with a standby power rating might have been sufficient ten to 15 years ago but is no longer a viable option to cope with the current severity of local power disruptions owing to South Africa’s energy crisis, says generator manufacturer WEG Africa senior gensets manager Craig Bouwer. WEG Africa operates a generator manufacturing facility in Cape Town, which supplies standard off-the-shelf generator sets as well as custom-built, application-specific units, with capacities ranging from 10 kVA to 3 350 kVA at 50 Hz.
As the demand for greener energy helps drive the increased uptake of wind energy, the dangers that face workers in the sector are becoming even more evident. As reported by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration in a report named ‘Green Job Hazards’, workers in the wind energy sector face a range of catastrophic and even fatal safety risks, including everything from falls to burn and crush injuries, all of which would happen anywhere between 60 m and 120 m above ground.
Contractual negotiations are under way between the developers of the HySHiFT sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project, in Mpumalanga, and the intermediary company set up under Germany’s H2Global scheme, known as Hintco, which enters into long-term purchase contracts for clean hydrogen and derivatives such as ammonia, methanol, and SAF. Speaking at Resources for Africa’s 2024 Hydrogen Discussion in Johannesburg Enertrag business case development manager Jonathan Metcalfe reported that the project, which is being developed by Sasol, Linde, Enertrag and Hydregen, had been selected as a preferred bidder and that the negotiations for a ten-year offtake deal could be concluded by mid-2024.
South Africa’s Nedbank Group is hoping to hire more investment bankers as it seeks to take advantage of a surge of deals in renewable energy, water and logistics in Africa’s most developed economy. With the bank’s home country in the throes of an electricity crisis and intensifying water shortages, outgoing CEO Mike Brown said the government is increasingly looking to ink public-private partnerships to adequately address those issues. As a result, Nedbank is hoping to hire more investment bankers and deploy more capital to the business in order to put together such deals, he said in follow up comments to an interview that took place on Monday.
The world’s coal-fired power capacity grew 2% last year, its highest annual increase since 2016, driven by new builds in China and decommissioning delays elsewhere, according to research published on Thursday. Despite record renewable additions, nearly 70 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity were commissioned across the world last year, including 47.4 GW in China, the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor think tank said in its annual survey. Coal-fired capacity outside China also grew for the first time since 2019, while worldwide only 21.1 GW was shut down, the survey said.
A new study has found that South Africa’s fossil fuel subsidies tripled between 2018 and 2023, rising to R118-billion from R39-billion over the period, with subsidies having been increased largely in response to the surge in fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Titled ‘Blackouts and Backsliding: Energy Subsidies in South Africa 2023’, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report calculates that oil and gas subsidies more than doubled over the five years to R52-billion compared with R23-billion in 2018.
Green hydrogen development company Hyphen Hydrogen Energy is investing €2-million on its MetMast Measuring Campaign, which makes use of meteorological masts (MetMasts) to precisely model the energy yield of the wind and solar resources to enable the optimised design of a project it is developing near Lüderitz, in Namibia. The investment includes the deployment of ten new MetMasts and the refitting of one mast it acquired from Namibian power utility NamPower.
Turbine manufacturer Nordex Energy South Africa (NESA) says an additional 830 MW of operational capacity will start feeding into South Africa’s energy grid by mid-2025. The company on April 9 announced a 75% increase in its generation capacity in operations, as well as plans to locally manufacture concrete tower sections in the Eastern Cape.
INDUSTRY NEWS
WHERE TO FIND US
Address
9 Yellow Street
Botshabelo Industrial Area
Botshabelo, Free State
Call / Email Us
Tel: +27 (0) 51 534 1651
Email: info@transfix.co.za
