The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nafcoc) is appealing to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) to reconsider its rejection of the Karpowership South Africa’s (SA’s) environmental-impact assessment (EIA) applications. The EIAs were submitted for three locations – the port of Ngqura, Saldanha Bay and Richards Bay.
Renewable energy company Enel Green Power (EGP) South Africa is contributing to the country’s renewable energy industry, as well as undertaking various initiatives to uplift communities locally, speakers said during a virtual media roundtable hosted by the company on August 5. EGP has 12 wind and solar plants in South Africa. This entails nine projects in operation and three under construction, EGP South Africa country manager Willian Price outlined.
Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) executive director Dr Crispian Olver says delaying South Africa’s transition away from coal will only add to the final adjustment costs and will also place the domestic business sector at a competitive disadvantage as other countries implement measures to restrict trade in carbon-intensive products. Speaking during a virtual event hosted by the Canadian High Commission this week on the role of the mining sector in the just energy transition, Olver said South Africa’s high energy and emissions intensity made it “extremely vulnerable” to measures such as the European Union’s upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
Johannesburg utility City Power plans to impose steep fines on those who connect to the Johannesburg power grid illegally, in efforts to recoup non-technical losses that amount to about R2-billion a year.
The move also follows the fatal electrocution of two people in Crosby, during which City Power discovered that the house the people were renting had a tampered meter and was missing earth leakage protection.
Business is aiming to progress ongoing negotiations on the use of local-content regulations to revive manufacturing in South Africa beyond calls for blanket import substitution by identifying specific products or sectors where the country has the competitive advantages in place to increase domestic production. Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has requested business to consider an import-substitution target of 20% for non-petroleum imports, which he says could drive progressive localisation worth up to R200-billion over the coming five years.
South African lawmakers plan to probe the country’s emergency power procurement program, the bulk of which was won by Turkey’s Karpowership. A program and terms of reference will be drawn up by the Mineral Resources and Energy Portfolio Committee, its chairman, Zet Luzipo, a lawmaker for the ruling African National Congress, said on Tuesday.
State-owned electricity utility Eskom is hoping to transform the workshops at the Komati power station – identified as the flagship site for the piloting of a broader ‘just energy transition’ programme that couples decarbonisation with social upliftment – into a factory capable of manufacturing and assembling a containerised microgrid solution. The Mpumalanga power station has generated electricity since 1961 and its last operational unit is scheduled to be shut in 2022, signalling the start of a coal decommissioning programme that will result in at least 10 500 MW of coal capacity decommissioned by 2030.
Power failures have become routine in South Africa. At the same time, the country wants to wean itself off the coal that generates more than 80% of its electricity and makes it the world’s twelfth‑biggest source of greenhouse gases. Most of South Africa’s power stations are near the end of their lives. An average of about 1 000 MW of capacity is set to be decommissioned annually over the next decade, which presents an ideal opportunity to begin overhauling the energy system. The question is how.
The deadline for projects selected as preferred bids under the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP) to reach commercial close has been extended to September 30, from an initial deadline of the end of July. However, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) insists that the decision will not delay its other procurement programmes, which are either under way or scheduled for launch later this year.
A continuing decline in the performance of the Eskom coal fleet drove yet another “intensive” period of load-shedding in South Africa during the first six months of 2021, when rotational power cuts were implemented for 650 hours, or 15% of the time. A new Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Energy Centre analysis shows the average energy availability factor (EAF) of the coal fleet slumped to 61.3% during the period, materially below the 65% average EAF reported in 2020, as well as the 66.9% of 2019 and the 71.9% of 2018.
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