Lighting energy saving app developed to save costs

The South African German Energy Programme (Sagen), implemented by the German development agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) have launched a new application (app) to improve investment decisions around energy use in lighting of buildings across South Africa.

The app has been tailored especially for the local market and will be made available for download later this year.

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Nersa subcommittee recommends approval of 40 MW Gold Fields solar licence

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) electricity subcommittee has recommended that the Energy Regulator approves Gold Fields’ high-profile licence application for a 40 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project to be developed at its South Deep mine, in Gauteng. Nersa has confirmed with Engineering News & Mining Weekly that the decision was made at a virtual meeting of the subcommittee on February 5.
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Filling Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam in July threatens Sudan’s security – Minister

Any unilateral step by Ethiopia to fill its hydropower project, called the Renaissance Dam, in July would directly threaten Sudan’s national security, Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasser Abbas said on Saturday. Sudan is also proposing a mediation role for the United States, European Union, United Nations and African Union as a way of breaking the deadlock in talks about the dam between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, Abbas told Reuters in an interview.
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Nersa committee holds back approval on Eskom application to buy short-term power

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) electricity subcommittee decided, on February 5, not to approve Eskom’s application for the emergency procurement of electricity from eight private generators under its Short-Term Power Purchase Programme (STPPP). In March 2020, the State-owned utility issued a request for proposals for supply of short-term power under the STPPP scheme, which was first initiated in October 2012 to help Eskom mitigate its capacity constraints and reduce the risk of load-shedding.
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Eskom supports lifting licensing exemption threshold for electricity generation to 50MW

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has expressed support for a lifting of the licensing threshold on distributed generators from 1 MW to 50 MW. Engineering News editor Terence Creamer unpacks the significance of this statement.  
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Eskom to implement power cuts from midday

South Africa’s struggling state power utility Eskom said on Friday that it would implement scheduled power cuts from 12:00 until Sunday evening. Eskom said on its Twitter feed that outages would be “stage 2”, which allow for up to 2 000 MW of the national load to be shed. It added that more information would follow.
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US-based scientists develop global extreme wind speed atlas to help wind energy sector

Scientists at Cornell University’s Cornell Atkinson Centre for Sustainability, in Ithaca in New York state in the US, have developed a new, digital, global wind atlas. Entitled “A Global Assessment of Extreme Wind Speeds for Wind Energy Applications”, it was unveiled in a paper published in the journal Nature Energy on January 25. It is the first geospatially explicit (that is, its datasets are connected with locations), uniform and publicly available source of information on extreme wind speeds. “Cost-efficient expansion of the wind-energy industry is enabled by access to this newly released digital atlas of the extreme wind conditions under which wind turbines will operate at locations around the world,” pointed out Cornell Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Sara Pryor. “This kind of information will ensure the correct selection of wind turbines for specific deployment and help ensure cost-efficient and dependable electricity generation from those turbines.”
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RWE leads Global Blockage Effect research initiative

Renewable energy company RWE Renewables has announced a new project to reduce the commercial uncertainty around the modelling of the Global Blockage Effect (GBE).

The GBE in offshore wind is the latest joint industry initiative under the Offshore Wind Accelerator (Owa) programme and is designed to improve understanding of the true impact of GBE by undertaking the first of its kind measurement campaign under real offshore conditions.

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EUIG wants wheeling reform to accompany rise in licence-exemption cap to 50 MW

The Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) has added its voice to growing calls to increase South Africa’s licence exemption threshold from 1 MW to 50 MW, but says the change should be accompanied by an updating of the current framework for wheeling power across the network. In a statement, the EIUG, which represents large mining and industrial companies that consume about 40% of South Africa’s electrical energy, said it was encouraged by Eskom’s support for the raising of the threshold, as well as CEO Andre de Ruyter’s offer to assist customers with their distributed-generation applications.
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Johannesburg’s first gas-fired power plants planned by Harith

Harith General Partners, which funds infrastructure development across Africa, is pushing ahead with plans to build the first gas-fired power plants in South Africa’s industrial hub of Gauteng and is exploring options to source the fuel. The fund manager wants to build two gas-fired plants at the site of its coal-fired Kelvin Power Station, which lies east of Johannesburg close to the city’s main airport. The government’s energy blueprint, known as the Integrated Resource Plan, includes proposals to bring gas to the region from 2023 at the earliest, and that target isn’t ambitious enough, according to Sipho Makhubela, Harith’s chief executive officer.
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