A World Bank Group-funded effort to increase train access to a power plant in South Africa’s coal-rich region has started to significantly backslide as criminals target the country’s rail system. Development of a 68-kilometer route between Ermelo, east of Johannesburg, and Eskom Holdings’s Majuba power station started over a decade ago to replace the continuous flow of trucks delivering coal to the plant. Once completed, the rail line will be cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly, according to the World Bank.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has postponed the bid submission date for the public procurement of battery energy storage systems (BESS) from July 5 to August 2. The postponement was confirmed on June 27, along with confirmation that compulsory bid registration, including the payment of a registration fee, had been extended to July 7.
Electrical equipment and services supplier Actom will take over a low-voltage product manufacturing facility in Kenya from existing technology partner Schneider Electric as part of Actom’s industrial expansion into East Africa. CEO Mervyn Naidoo says the company is planning to establish industrial hubs in East, West and eventually North Africa, which will provide a platform for the broader portfolio of the company’s products and services in these regions.
Eskom’s newly released Interim Grid Capacity Allocation Rules (IGCAR), formulated in response to surging demand for grid access in a context of acute grid scarcity, have received a cool reception from industry, with some of the conditions included in the new framework being viewed as “onerous”. GM for operations enablement Velaphi Ntuli says the IGCAR, which have been developed and canvassed over the past six months, have been designed to ensure that shovel-ready generation projects are given priority.
Solar, wind and hybrid project developer, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and operations and maintenance company JUWI South Africa now has 400 MW of EPC projects in advanced stages of development for mines in South Africa. This follows the financial close of the 89 MW Castle Wind project by the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) Consortium for diversified miner Sibanye-Stillwater’s South African mining operations.
Telecommunications giant MTN South Africa is deploying multiple generation technologies, including solar, gas and battery energy systems, in one plant at its head office in Fairlands, Johannesburg, as it works toward becoming a standalone independent power producer (IPP). The plant, which houses five different generation technologies – said to be a first in South Africa – has a full load of 4.5 MW during loadshedding.
Diversified resources company Exxaro Resources expects to report a 6% decrease in export coal sales volumes to 2.51-million tonnes for the six months ended June 30, compared with 2.67-million tonnes for the six months ended December 31, 2022, as a result of Transnet Freight Rail’s (TFR’s) poor rail performance to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) and the viability of trucking coal to alternative ports being negatively impacted by the lower coal prices. FD Riaan Koppeschaar notes in a pre-close statement to shareholders that TFR had railed 19.95-million tonnes of coal the RBCT during the five months ended May 31, which is equivalent to an annualised rate of 46.46-million tonnes.
Eskom is expecting demand for the rest of South Africa’s winter months to remain below levels initially assumed when the utility finalised its base case for the high-demand season (see graphic above), while it is also beginning to report improved generation performance at some of its coal stations. When Eskom unveiled its winter outlook on May 18, it warned that it might be forced to resort to Stage 8 loadshedding (representing 16 hours of cuts in a 32-hour cycle) should it fail to cap coal plant breakdowns to below 15 000 MW and should demand spike on the back of colder temperatures, particularly in Gauteng.
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE’s) National Air Quality Officer (NAQO) has granted State-owned power utility Eskom a postponement to meet minimum emission standards (MES) at the Kusile power station, in Mpumalanga, from June 5 this year to March 31, 2025.
This postponement is subject to certain strict conditions.
The postponement application was necessitated by the failure of Kusile’s west stack on October 23 last year. The failure limited the power station’s ability to operate three commissioned generating units (Units 1,2, and 3).
Global energy demand rose 1% last year and record renewables growth did nothing to shift the dominance of fossil fuels, which still accounted for 82% of supply, the industry’s Statistical Review of World Energy report said on Monday. Last year was marked by turmoil in the energy markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which helped to boost gas and coal prices to record levels in Europe and Asia.
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