Energy crisis sparked by Ukraine war to speed up green transition – IEA

The drop in Russian fossil fuel exports after its Ukraine invasion this year will transform the global energy landscape for decades and can help to hasten a green energy transition, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook acknowledges the economic hit from reduced supplies of Russian oil, natural gas and coal but is keeping an environmental best case scenario in which no investment in new fossil fuel projects is needed.
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Loadshedding to continue into the weekend

Loadshedding will continue into the weekend, but will be dropped to Stage 2 and Stage 1, Eskom said on Thursday morning.  “Stage 3 loadshedding is currently underway until 16:00 on Thursday, thereafter, it will increase to Stage 4 until 05:00 on Friday morning,” the power utility said.
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LHWP Phase II opens for bids for hydropower component

The Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) has kicked off the procurement process for the design and construction supervision of the Oxbow Hydropower Scheme. Interested firms have until March 13, 2023, to submit their bids.
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Details of Eskom debt relief to be unveiled in Feb as loadshedding crimps growth outlook

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has confirmed that government will take over between one-third and two-thirds of Eskom’s R400-billion debt, as intense loadshedding, which government expects to persist for 18 months, contributed to a downward revision to the country’s growth outlook. The National Treasury is now forecasting real gross domestic product growth of only 1.9% for 2022, having projected growth of 2.1% in the 2022 Budget Review published in February.
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Higher revenue collections support consolidation as growth headwinds strengthen

Better-than-expected revenue collection enabled Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to report an improvement in government’s fiscal position relative to the one forecast in the February Budget. However, slowing global and domestic growth together with ongoing power cuts pose a risk to the fiscal outlook, as does the prospect of a higher-than-budgeted public-service wage settlement.
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Komati turnaround will cost close to R8bn, and the World Bank may foot most of the bill

Repurposing Eskom’s coal-fired power station, Komati, would cost around R7.9-billion, project documents from the World Bank show. Eskom has been engaging with the World Bank in providing funding for the re-powering and repurposing of Komati. The power station’s first unit was commissioned in 1961, and it had nine operational units, each with a capacity of 100MW. The last unit is to be decommissioned at the end of October. But Eskom has relied on multiple socioeconomic assessments to determine how to give the power station, situated in Mpumalanga, a second life so that it can continue to support the local economy and livelihoods of those in the affected region.
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Second Ilanga Cup to become a 24-hour endurance race

The organisers of this year’s inaugural Ilanga Cup Solar Challenge say the event will be back next year, albeit in a somewhat different format. The 2023 edition will return to the Red Star Raceway, in Delmas, on July 5 and 6.
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Eskom debt plan in focus at South Africa’s mid-term budget

South Africa’s finance minister is expected to announce a plan to take on part of power utility Eskom’s mammoth debt in a mid-term budget on Wednesday, although analysts say the legally complex transfer will take time to execute. State-owned Eskom has been mired in financial crisis for years and has a roughly R400-billion in debt it cannot afford to service.
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Coal can ‘reinvent itself’, CGS must play role in the energy transition – Mantashe 

During his keynote address at the Council for Geoscience (CGS) Summit, held at the Durban International Convention Centre from October 25 to 27, Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe expressed his belief that coal could “reinvent itself”, given sufficient investment. Mantashe cited the CGS’s lead role in the pilot carbon capture, utilisation and storage project in Leandra, Mpumalanga. The project, which is expected to become operational in early 2024, will test the feasibility of injecting between 10 000 t to 50 000 t of carbon dioxide a year, to a depth of at least 1 km. 
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Rand takes big hit as investors worry about Godongwana speech, Beijing developments

On Tuesday morning, the rand approached R18.50/$ – trading at levels last seen in early 2020 as the country digested the implications of the first hard Covid-19 lockdown. The currency is under pressure ahead of Wednesday’s medium-term budget speech announcement, and has also taken a knock as riskier assets digested political developments in China, the biggest single destination for South Africa’s exports.
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