Fieldstone appoints renewable energy stalwart Breytenbach as senior expert

Energy and infrastructure focused investment bank Fieldstone has appointed Karèn Breytenbach as senior expert in energy and public-private partnership (PPP) systems.

She has been involved in energy and private investment in public projects over the past quarter century and is renowned for her “ground-breaking” work in South Africa, and even beyond its borders, states Fieldstone in a statement.

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South Africa targets ‘highly concessional’ terms as it moves to negotiate $8.5bn climate deal

If South Africa is unable to secure highly concessional terms from the international partners that have offered $8.5-billion to support the country’s energy transition and to provide social protection for workers and communities associated with the coal value chain, it will not pursue the transaction, an official in The Presidency said on Tuesday. Speaking at an event hosted on the side-lines of COP26, Rudi Dicks, who is programme management officer in the private office of the President, emphasised that no agreement had yet been concluded and that South Africa could still “walk away if we feel that the conditions are too onerous”.
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South Africa must find alternative livelihoods in shift away from coal – Mantashe

South Africa’s shift away from fossil fuels must generate alternative economic activities in order to avoid coal mining areas such as Mpumalanga becoming “ghost towns”, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday. “If we say we must stop fossil fuels, we must find alternative livelihoods,” Mantashe said on the sidelines of the African Energy Week conference in Cape Town.
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Parsons highlights risk of load-shedding to South Africa’s economic recovery

North West University Business School economist Professor Raymond Parsons has urged that the extent to which the current Eskom load-shedding “now poses an increasing to risk to South Africa’s economic recovery should not be underestimated”. In addition, the current bout of rolling blackouts across the country is also impacting on its growth prospects and job creation.
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Mahlako’s solar plant testament to wheeling model viability in South Africa

The Mahlako Energy Fund has announced that its 10 MW solar plant in Kathu, in the Northern Cape, has started commercial operation.

The project marks a milestone in that it is the first large-scale energy wheeling project in South Africa, providing clean energy to Amazon Web Services (AWS) through the Eskom grid.

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French nuclear group buys Rolls-Royce’s civil nuclear control business

French nuclear design, engineering, manufacture and construction company Framatome announced on Monday that it had completed its acquisition of Rolls-Royce Civil Nuclear Instrumentation and Control (I&C). This move strengthens Framatome’s worldwide development and deployment capabilities regarding I&C systems. More than 550 staff, who previously worked for Rolls-Royce, are now joining Framatome. Most of them are already based in France, concentrated at Grenoble.
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Wits Junction district heating project continues to exemplify solar cogen success

The 60 000 ℓ district heating project at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Junction student residence continues to exemplify the success of a solar co-generation project, and how a relationship with Austria is being developed through a partnership facilitated by the South African Solar Thermal Training and Demonstration Initiative (Soltrain). Soltrain is funded by the Austrian Development Agency and co-funded by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Fund for International Development, and is a regional initiative aimed at building capacity and demonstrating the potential of solar thermal systems in the South African Development Community (SADC) region.
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SAWEA supports $8.5bn green financing deal

The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) says it supports the first-of-its-kind $8.5-billion green financing deal announced at the COP26 climate talks earlier in November. SAWEA, on behalf of the wind power industry and South Africa’s broader renewable energy sector, says this deal – which comprises multi and bilateral grants, concessional loans, guarantees and private investment – will provide impetus for South Africa’s accelerated uptake of green energy.
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With South Africa set to breach 1 000 hours of load-shedding in 2021, concerns grow about …

With South Africa now officially experiencing its worst-ever year of rotational power cuts, there is growing concern about both the level and flow of financing for maintenance, as well as the utility’s capacity to implement. Initial calculations by Jarrad Wright, formerly of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Energy Centre, indicate that 15% of 2021 would have been load-shedding-afflicted once Eskom has fully implemented its latest round of announced load-shedding, which is officially set to continue until Saturday, November 13.
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Nuclear regulator assures that contamination incident at Koeberg did not involve reactors

The National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) on Monday assured that a reported incidence of airborne contamination at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant (NNP) did not come from the nuclear reactor. Koeberg, which is owned and operated by State-owned national electricity utility Eskom, has two reactors and is the country’s (and indeed Africa’s) only NPP. (The SAFARI-1 nuclear reactor at Pelindaba, west of Pretoria, is owned and operated by the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation and is a research reactor which does not generate any electricity.) The contamination was detected during a routine test of the Koeberg Security Central Alarm Station’s ventilation system. (During such tests, which are conducted on a regular basis, Iodine-131, which is radioactive, is used in tiny amounts to represent the kind of contaminant that the ventilation system has to filter out, in the event of a nuclear accident at the NPP.)
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