State-owned utility Eskom has been ordered by a high court to pay more than R1-billion to French nuclear energy company Framatome, after contract and project management problems delayed a steam generator swap at the entity’s Koeberg nuclear power plant, newspaper Business Day reports. In an article on July 21, reporter Kabelo Khumalo reports that the adjudication process, which was handled by advocate Peter Ramsden, resulted in the court ordering Eskom to pay Framatome €35.2-million (R727-million) and a further R256.6-million, in line with Ramsden’s earlier findings.
Mozambique won World Bank backing for its plan to build Southern Africa’s biggest hydropower plant in half a century. The lender plans to provide debt and equity funding as well as risk guarantees and insurance for the $5-billion Mphanda Nkuwa plant on the Zambezi river and an associated $1.4-billion power transmission project, World Bank President Ajay Banga said in an interview in Mozambique.
The solar industry experienced a boom between 2020 and 2023 when loadshedding was rife; however, the rush to install solar panels left monitoring and maximising these power systems as an afterthought, says solar technology specialist SolrBoost cofounder Paul de Goede.
He explains that 80% of solar systems in residential and small commercial and industrial operations are monitored reactively, instead of proactively with the use of analytics, which leads to lower returns on investment (ROI) for these assets.
Licensed electricity trader Apollo Africa is ramping up its market entry with a balanced, scalable growth strategy that leverages its position as a trusted intermediary between South Africa’s top-tier independent power producers (IPPs) and a growing portfolio of industrial and commercial customers. Newly appointed interim CEO Ed Cameron reports that Apollo’s role unlocks reliable renewable energy supply for South African businesses through wheeling, while helping both IPPs and customers manage risk.
Lower-cost, free-maintenance, zero-investment rooftop solar electricity is the enticing five-year power purchase agreement (PPA) offer from Sosimple Energy – a diligent entrepreneurial company which already owns and operates more than 75 of solar PV assets across South Africa’s industrial and commercial sectors, and which is targeting five times more. “The customer carries no risk or expense beyond paying for the power they consume. We recover our investment over the term of the agreement,” Sosimple Energy MD Liana Braxton outlines in the attached video interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly Publishing Editor Martin Creamer.
Air-quality offsets offer a valuable tool for providing significant improvements in air quality, particularly when direct emission reductions are challenging or unfeasible, highlights global mining consultancy SRK Consulting South Africa chairperson and principal environmental geochemist Vis Reddy. Air quality offset programmes provide industries with an opportunity to counterbalance the impacts of their industrial emissions by reducing air pollution in surrounding communities that are generated from other sources.
In a belated move, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has announced an 11-month process to set rules for electricity trading, having already licensed ten trading entities, while also preparing to hold hearings on three more licence applications in August. In terms of the timeline presented by the regulator, the intention is to have the rules Gazetted by June next year.
A severe lack of economic collaboration between nations is stifling Africa’s critical minerals beneficiation aspirations, expert panel members agreed during the Manufacturing Indaba, in Sandton, on July 16. The panel convened to discuss the challenges standing in the way of unlocking Africa’s critical minerals to power the future of manufacturing on the continent.
Eskom reports that repowering projects with a combined capacity of 5 GW are currently under development across six coal power station sites and that it is aiming to implement 2 GW by 2026, mostly through public-private partnerships (PPPs). In a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy, the State-owned company said the projects formed part of the repowering component of its Just Energy Transition (JET) strategy, which was also central to “kickstarting” a broader aspiration to introduce 20 GW of clean generation by 2040.
The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) has announced that Monde Bala, who has hitherto been group executive at Eskom Distribution, will be seconded to the role of interim CEO from August 1, succeeding Segomoco Scheppers. In a statement, NTCSA said that an “accelerated” process of recruiting and appointing a permanent CEO was also currently under way.
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