Light manufacturer BEKA Schréder recently announced the launch of the Omnistar Micro and Mini. Together with the Midi and Maxi, the Omnistar family is now complete.
Hydropower plays a key role in all of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) High Five priority areas that are intended to support the continent’s achievement of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. This is according to AfDB power systems development director Batchi Baldeh, who took part in a live discussion presented by the Africa Energy Forum on ‘Overcoming Development and Environmental challenges to unlock Hydropower’s Potential in Africa’, which together with African Utility Week & POWERGEN Africa, forms part of the current Digital Energy Festival for Africa.
Energy solutions company GE Renewable Energy – which will be exhibiting at African Utility Week and POWERGEN Africa 2020 – announced last month that its Haliade-X prototype, the world’s most powerful wind turbine operating to date, has been optimised and is now operating at a 13 MW power output. The prototype will undergo a series of tests to perform different types of measurements and obtain its type certificate in the coming months.
UK-based global major industrial technology group Rolls-Royce recently signed, in rapid succession, two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) regarding the development and operation of small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plants (NPPs). Rolls-Royce is leading a consortium, supported by both industry and the British government, to develop an SMR NPP for the UK and export (being referred to as the UKSMR). The UKSMR concept is to produce a low-cost NPP, whose components would be manufactured in a factory, using advanced manufacturing technologies to cut costs. The components would be assembled on site within a weatherproof canopy, to prevent the assembly process being disrupted, thereby also reducing costs. Each UKSMR would have a generating capacity of 440 MW.
The World Bank reports that Eskom’s large-scale battery energy storage initiative, which will involve the installation of battery energy storage systems (BESS) across up to eight sites, is being treated as a “flagship” initiative by the global development finance institution, which has committed $1-billion to support the deployment of battery technologies globally. In August, Eskom called for bids for the design and construction of a BESS to be installed at the Skaapvlei substation at Vredendal, in the Western Cape, where the group’s 100 MW Sere wind farm is already located. The system should have a minimum power capacity of 80 MW and an energy capacity of 320 MWh.
The march toward a greener global economy is headed into a more difficult second phase that will aim to replace carbon as an energy source, said panelists during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. Companies including Honeywell International Inc. and Schneider Electric SE are offering solutions to reduce carbon emissions in commercial buildings, the petrochemical industry and transportation that are being adopted now, which constitutes the first phase. But the replacement of carbon-based energy will be more difficult and require more breakthroughs, said Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk.
A report by Climate Transparency has cautioned the Group of Twenty (G20) countries against quick-fix Covid-19 stimulus packages that favour fossil fuel industries. The global partnership has a shared mission to stimulate a “race to the top” in climate action in the G20 countries through enhanced transparency.
President Cyril Ramaphosa used the platform of the third South Africa Investment Conference to underline the country’s potential to act a gateway to the African market, as he sought to reignite investor interest in an economy that has been underperforming for more than a decade and has been severely damaged since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2018, Ramaphosa set a five-year target of securing R1.2-trillion in new investment and in 2018 and 2019 combined investment pledges worth R664-billion across 102 projects had been made by domestic and foreign investors. To date, R172 billion of the committed amount had actually been invested.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) power users, both utility-scale and rooftop users alike, will have to start thinking about, and develop, ways in which the waste of solar power generation facilities will be managed at the end of their lives.
In terms of the industry’s regulatory requirements, the solar industry will have to comply with the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, which is currently in a draft form for public comment, as well as the National Environmental Management: Waste Act of 2008.
Britain will move up a ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans to 2030 and is eyeing 250 000 new jobs as part of a green industrial revolution, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as he tries to meet Britain’s net zero emissions climate target. Johnson is seeking to show his government is on track to deliver manifesto promises after a tumultuous few days in which he was forced to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone with Covid-19, and his most senior adviser, arch Brexiteer Dominic Cummings, was ousted.
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