The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) was successfully turning itself around, the State-owned entity’s CEO, Loyiso Tyabashe, has told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy. He also pointed out that the 2021/2022 financial year (FY) had been a time of transition from Necsa’s previous strategy and corporate plan to a new strategy, focused on growth. At the start of the financial year, Necsa had been forecast to make a loss for the year of R155-million. At the end of the financial year, the loss actually recorded had been much less, at R23.2-million. During the previous financial year, it had suffered a loss of R318.74-million. In FY 2019/2020 the loss had been R190.91-million and in FY 2018/2019, Necsa had seen a loss of R12.46-million.
The Southern African Biogas Industry Association (Sabia) has laid out its industry advancement priorities after undertaking an in-depth review of the industry’s challenges over the last 18 months.
Some of these challenges include government direction on biogas, access to funding, regulations and feed-in tariffs, developing the market and limited available research.
Due to lower weekend demand, loadshedding will be suspended at midnight on Friday, Eskom says. Since Wednesday evening a generation unit each at Arnot and Majuba power stations were returned to service while a generating unit each at Duvha, Hendrina, Lethabo and Tutuka power stations were taken offline for repairs.
A fire damaged one of the generating units at Kusile Power Station that has not yet been synchronised to the grid, Eskom said on Friday. The fire occurred at a gas air heater on 17 September at unit 5, which is in the process of being commissioned. The power utility said that while its fire protection systems extinguished the fire, inspections showed “significant damage”. Eskom said it was inspecting the damage to determine what needs be repaired. At the same time, it is seeking to establish what caused the fire. “All efforts are being applied to expedite the repair of the [gas air heater] to enable the progress of commissioning of the unit and synchronisation to the national grid,” said Eskom. “At this time repair duration is speculative and based on utility experience, actual duration will be determined once the scope of work has been finalised.”
Four independent power producers have been named as successful bidders for the lease of grid-ready Mpumalanga land, which is being made available by Eskom as part of efforts to accelerate the development of wind, solar and storage projects in the province – investments that should, in time, help lower the risk of loadshedding and provide new employment and business opportunities in the region as coal plants are decommissioned. The entities identified as having secured the 25- to 30-year property leases for parcels covering a total of 6 184 ha of land near the Majuba and Tutuka coal stations are HDF Energy South Africa, Red Rocket, Sola Group and Mainstream Renewable Power Developments South Africa.
Electricity equipment multinational Hitachi Energy has signed a long-term service agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) Société Nationale d’Electricité (SNEL) to secure power supply in the country’s most important power transmission asset – the Inga-Kolwezi high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link. The link supplies up to 1 000 MW of emission-free electricity from the Inga Falls hydropower plant in the far west of the country to the Kolwezi mining region in the south. With a length of 1 700 km, it is the longest HVDC link in Africa.
Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer talks about the public hearings that were due to be held this week by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), but which had to be rescheduled owing to a poor response; what Nersa will do next; and the overall trend of waning interest in Nersa hearings.
Road transport is the most prioritised area to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to leading e-commerce and manufacturing companies in Europe. A new report carried out by market research company Ipsos and vehicle manufacturer Volvo Trucks shows that companies are willing to pay more for transport suppliers with lower CO2 emissions. On behalf of Volvo Trucks Ipsos interviewed 100 large e-commerce and manufacturing companies in eight European countries about their demand for fossil fuel free transports in future procurements. The countries included in the survey were the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.
The City of Cape Town says its electricity customers have been protected from more than 1 100 hours of the 1 900 hours of loadshedding implemented by State-owned Eskom between February and September this year. “Where possible, the city has been able to protect its customers from up to two stages of loadshedding primarily through the management of the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme,” says City of Cape Town energy MMC Beverley van Reenen.
The Department of Minerals Resources and Energy (DMRE) has made “significant progress” in the process of promulgating the Electricity Regulation Amendment (ERA) Bill, DMRE deputy director-general for mining, minerals and energy policy Ntokozo Ngcwabe has told the Windaba 2022 conference in Cape Town. Approval by the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, and submission to the full Cabinet, should both happen next month. Subsequently, it would be tabled in Parliament. She explained that, at that point, Parliament’s own processes, procedures and timescales took over and the DMRE no longer had any control over the progress of the Bill. The department would follow and monitor the parliamentary process, to be ready to respond to any queries or comments that might be generated by the parliamentary process.
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