Water levels at the Kariba reservoir, Southern Africa’s largest man-made dam, have dropped to a record low. The dam had 5.63% of usable storage on Monday compared with 27% at the same time last year and less than the previous low set almost three decades ago, according to data available on the Zambezi River Authority’s website. Normally, water levels start rising in January.
Food and beverage company Nestlé’s East & Southern Africa Region (ESAR) has installed a 966 kW ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant at its Babelegi manufacturing plant, in Hammanskraal, Gauteng. The 1 806 PV panels are expected to deliver about 2.1-million kilowatt-hours of energy a year, which equates to 15.6% of the total electrical energy requirement of the factory, which manufacturers Cremora coffee creamer and Maggi two-minute noodles, for the full year.
JSE-listed diversified chemicals producer Omnia grew its interim earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, excluding its Zimbabwean operations and impairments, by 30% year-on-year to R1.4-billion for the six months ended September 30.
This resulted in the group’s adjusted headline earnings a share from continuing operations being 32% higher year-on-year, at R4.01.
Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy reports that public consultations on the country’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP), which was unveiled only days before the start of COP27, should be concluded by mid-February. In a briefing following the conclusion of the climate negotiations that took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Creecy said that the Presidential Climate Commission would help facilitate the consultations, which she said would “fundamentally assist us in shaping the implementation plan”.
Lekela Power, the company with the most renewable energy assets in Africa, plans to soon complete financial arrangements for the biggest battery storage facility in the west of the continent and wants to expand into providing electricity for green hydrogen projects. The Amsterdam-based company intends building a 160 MWh battery plant next to its 159 MW Parc Eolien Taiba N’Diaye wind-powered power facility in Senegal, said Chris Antonopoulos, Lekela’s chief executive officer, stressing that they are separate projects.
Large-scale, socioeconomic development initiative driver The Impact Catalyst was launched in Mpumalanga on November 21 to promote initiatives designed to leverage collaboration to deliver a collective, cross-sectoral impact.
The Impact Catalyst – founded by Anglo American, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Exxaro and World Vision South Africa – has already been launched in Limpopo and the Northern Cape.
Botswana has picked India’s Jindal Steel & Power Ltd as the preferred bidder in a tender to build a 300 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant, a notice from its energy ministry showed on Monday. It is the only fossil fuel-based power plant the Southern African country plans to procure in the next 20 years.
Stage 4 loadshedding (instead of Stage 5) will be implemented continuously until 05:00 on Tuesday morning, Eskom said on Monday afternoon. Thereafter Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented daily at 05:00 – 16:00.
Eskom said on Sunday that it has run out of cash to buy diesel and does not plan to order any more until 1April 1, 2023. The consequence of this will be extreme levels of loadshedding not yet experienced in South Africa.
The South African Local Government Association (Salga) says it does not support the proposed active partnering agreement between State-owned utility Eskom and the Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality, in the Free State, which purports to assist the municipality with operational challenges to secure revenue to enable payment of its bulk electricity account. Under this arrangement, Eskom intends to take over the electricity distribution function, including all related revenue, and out of the hands of the municipality.
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