The South African rand was on the backfoot on Friday and set for a weekly loss against the dollar, as crippling power cuts continued to heighten economic uncertainty. At 0640 GMT, the rand traded at 17.2700 against the dollar, 0.1% weaker than its previous close and down more than 2% so far this week.
Johannesburg power utility City Power is unable to keep up with the high demand for minisubstations owing to the higher stages of loadshedding, and is losing an average of two minisubstations a day owing to theft and vandalism across its service delivery centres, with the hardest hit being Roodepoort. “The impact of loadshedding on our infrastructure is high, with minisubstations and transformers blowing up or being stolen. Since the recent higher stages of loadshedding, City Power has been losing minisubstations faster than we can replenish them,” it says.
Nature-based solutions assist in creating a more circular economy and by-products from the treatment can create further value for the water treatment industry, says Rhodes University’s Institute for Environmental Biotechnology (EBRU) director Professor Keith Cowan. By-products can appeal to various markets and increase the overall market value of nature-based water treatment processes.
South Africa’s just energy transition (JET) to a low-carbon economy will not transpire overnight and will remain a challenge throughout the 2023 financial year, professional services firm EY strategy consulting arm EY-Parthenon Africa leader Paul O’Flaherty tells Engineering News. “As with many parts of the globe, South Africa is living in the context of a trilemma. We need to balance money (availability of funding, high interest rates and inflation), energy (availability, affordability and achieving net zero) and supply (cost, sustainability and resilience).”
Lessons from South Africa’s extensive experience in the automotive industry need to be applied as the country focuses on building a green hydrogen sector, which could potentially produce six-million to 13-million tons of green hydrogen and derivatives a year by 2050. “South Africa has some natural advantages – land, wind, solar energy, oceans and endowment of critical minerals needed for green industrialisation value chains.
The South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) expects private-sector projects exceeding the 100 MW threshold to be reflected on the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) database from the second or third quarters of this year to further increase new generation capacity, says SAPVIA CEO Dr Rethabile Melamu. An estimated 4.3 GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity was installed as of 2021 across various market segments, with the total capacity of non-Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) solar PV initiatives registered with Nersa increasing by 1.2 GW since the last quarter of 2021 over the past year.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe is adamant that he is not to blame for continued loadshedding – even though his department oversees the procurement of generation capacity and not a single megawatt has been connected to the grid during his tenure. In a wide-ranging interview with News24 on Tuesday, Mantashe, who is also African National Congress (ANC) chairperson, not only continued to distance himself and his department from the crisis but doubled down on his comments that effectively accused outgoing Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter and staff at the power utility of treason.
EDF Renewables in South Africa reports that construction of its third wind project selected during the much-delayed fifth bid window (BW5) of government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) is under way after the 140 MW Coleskop project reached financial and commercial close on January 18. The project forms part of the 420 MW Koruson 1 portfolio that also includes the Phezukomoya and San Kraal wind projects, which achieved financial close on November 10.
The African Solar Industry Association (Afsia) has highlighted some of Africa’s dormant, “but brimming with potential”, sectors that can realise new sources of revenue and universal access to clean energy.
In its 2023 yearly ‘Solar Outlook’ report, which was released on January 18 during the World Future Energy Summit, in Abu Dhabi, Afsia outlines the main segments with major opportunities in Africa as being commercial and industrial (C&I), green hydrogen, solar-powered mobility and the productive use of energy (PUE).
Trade union Solidarity has served legal papers on the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to remove all bottlenecks standing in the way of private energy suppliers. Solidarity stresses that the future of energy in South Africa lies in less State and more private service delivery.
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