Employers, their employees and trade unions need to develop framework agreements that set out how a company and its employees will respond to the impact of high levels of loadshedding, or even a grid outage, on the ability of the company and employees to perform their functions. This is the view of specialists from law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH), which emphasised that the parties must identify gaps in the Labour Relations Act to address these challenges and then develop a framework agreement that sets out how the company and its employees will respond.
The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) says there are a number of key focus areas in government’s Energy Action Plan that require additional intervention and swift action.
Although the association commends the progress already made with implementing the plan since mid-2022, it believes that, for the country’s energy security challenges to be addressed adequately, a holistic view of available renewable energy sources need to be taken into consideration.
For the first time in more than two weeks, South Africa will be hit by Stage 4 loadshedding, which is currently planned for Thursday evening. Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented until 05:00 on Thursday. Then, Stage 3 will follow until 16:00, which will then be escalated to Stage 4 until 05:00 on Friday morning.
International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) director-general Francesco La Camera has warned that the global energy transition is off-track and called for a fundamental course correction.
He noted in an address during the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, which was hosted in March 28, that a successful energy transition demands bold and transformative measures that reflect the urgency of the present situation; however, he added that the effects of multiple global crises had frustrated these efforts.
Despite intense power disruptions, no new wind turbines were connected to South Africa’s grid in 2022, the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC’s) latest report has confirmed. In 2021, South Africa recorded 668 MW of new wind installations, up from 515 MW in 2020, which increased the country’s overall installed base to 3 442 MW.
A newly established Indoor Energy Storage Testbed equips the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to test the performance and reliability of lithium-ion batteries, as expressed by their storage capacity, lifecycle and depth of discharge. This will help build capacity in the South African battery industry, as lower-capacity clients, such as small and medium-sized enterprises, manufacturers and importers, will have access to indoor testbed facilities and overall market knowledge can be improved, the CSIR states.
Financial services company FNB has announced low-cost energy solutions for consumers ranging from R149 a month. Customers will have access to range of alternative energy and back-up power solutions on the FNB mobile application (app) and can pay for these over a 24-month period. The service, which was revealed on March 27, is enabled through FNB Connect, with the bank promising customers would soon receive preapproved offers for these options too.
Newly appointed Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa visited the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State last week. He said Lethabo had been the first power station he visited last week that was performing well.
China Energy Engineering Group proposed building a 1 000 MW floating solar farm for Zimbabwe, a nearly $1-billion project, on the world’s largest man-made lake. More than 1.8 million photovoltaic panels installed over 146 modular floating units would be used for the project on Lake Kariba if it went ahead, according to an official report that was prepared for the state’s power utility and potential private equity funders by the company and seen by Bloomberg. The civil engineering works would cost $186-million and installation $801-million, according to China Energy.
Sasol said it has a plan in place to find a successor for CEO Fleetwood Grobler, whose term of running South Africa’s biggest publicly traded company by revenue will end next year. The board’s nomination and governance committee started a “process to identify a suitable successor” to Grobler in 2022, chairperson Sipho Nkosi said in an emailed response to questions. The company will announce the new CEO in the first half of 2024, he said.
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