South Africa’s request for a $497-million (about R9-billion) to decommission and repower the Komati coal-fired power plant using renewables and batteries has been approved by the World Bank Group board of executive directors. The last Komati unit was shut at midday on October 31, signalling what Eskom said would be the start of a repowering and repurposing of the site into a renewables, storage, manufacturing and training hub.
Solomon Kebede looks concerned as he stares at the machine piercing the dark, moist soil of Ethiopia’s countryside. The drill has sunk a hole more than 450 m deep and found nothing. Yet Kebede doesn’t despair; he has faith that the heat must be there. “When drilling geothermal wells, you send your mind and heart to a place you don’t know, deep in the Earth’s core,” he says. “I’m part of the generation that’s trying to exploit these resources.”
Heavy lifting and rigging specialists Lovemore Bros successfully concluded a substantial materials handling, stowage and delivery project of 73 parts weighing 307.1 t for a client based in Witbank, Mpumalanga. The project, which started in the second week of May, was finished when the last item was delivered to the Richards Bay Port on August 8.
The current energy crisis sweeping South Africa has increased the need for reserve power, whereby complete management systems can help manage different energy sources, says power management company Eaton Africa power quality product manager Jaco du Plooy. He explains that, while solar power is being used by local businesses, solar energy is limited to certain times of day when sunlight is available, thereby increasing demand for energy storage among local businesses.
JSE-listed group Sasol expects to conclude power purchase agreements for 600 MW of renewable energy “imminently” as it moves ahead with plans to meet a 2030 target of reducing its greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 30%, while sustaining energy and chemical production volumes. The renewables electricity will be wheeled to the group’s South African operations through the Eskom grid by 2025 and Sasol expects to add a further 600 MW of renewables by 2030.
Financial services firm Nedbank expects South Africa’s economic growth to remain below 2% over the next two to three years until more power generation comes online. Additional power generation capacity would result in greater energy certainty and provide an incentive for more investment in the country.
Eskom has said it will meet the deadline to get a steam generator that suffered minor damage when it was dropped at a Chinese factory to Koeberg Unit 1 by December this year. An Eskom delegation updated a joint meeting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises and the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy on concerns with getting a unit at Koeberg in Cape Town ready for operation.
President Cyril Ramaphosa promised in late July to implement emergency measures within three months to tackle record blackouts. But those have only been partially implemented and outages continue. Ramaphosa plans to deal with energy-related issues when he addresses parliament in Cape Town on Thursday, his spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said. He declined to comment on the specifics.
Severe damage to a chimney at Kusile is the latest blow to the beleaguered power station. On Wednesday, Eskom said that the flue gas duct at Unit 1 of the Mpumalanga power station “failed” in two places on October 23.
Energy trader Enpower Trading and solar energy firm SolarAfrica Energy have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to deliver up to 100 MW of renewable power supply.
The PPA is the first contract secured for Enpower Trading, which has secured a licence from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
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