South Africa’s Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office reported on Tuesday that more than 60 respondents had signalled their intention, by the October 31 deadline for doing so, to participate in the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), through which government is aiming to procure 2 000 MW of so-called ‘emergency power’. IPP Office CEO Tshifhiwa Bernard Magoro told participants to a virtual panel discussion held as part of the third South Africa Investment Conference that there had been a high degree of interest in the “technology agnostic” programme, criticised by some commentators as including criteria that made it difficult for renewables and battery solutions to submit competitive bids.
The decommissioning of coal-fired power stations without repurposing of labour will considerably exacerbate the unemployment crisis in South Africa and, therefore, workforce relocation and the associated skills development it calls for, needs to be considered ahead of time.
Energy & Water Sector Education Training Authority CFO and acting CEO Mpho Mookapele stated this during the virtually held Solar Power Africa conference on November 17.
State-owned power utility Eskom expects to complete its socioeconomic impact studies by the end of March for the planned shutdown of the Grootvlei, Komati and Hendrina power stations, in Mpumalanga, which are the first of ten coal plants scheduled for decommissioning by 2040. The decommissioning of the three power stations is anticipated to take place over the coming five years and Eskom has initiated a process to assess the potential for ‘repowering’ some of the stations using alternative generation technologies, including renewables, gas, biomass, battery storage and hydrogen.
The World Bank has provided a $305 000 grant for South Africa to develop a study on sustainable financial mechanisms for demand-side energy efficiency market transformation.
The beneficiaries of the study, the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), will use the study to identify and develop appropriate financing mechanisms.
A total of 29 South African municipalities have already approved tariff frameworks for small-scale embedded generation (SSEG), with 282 MW of mostly rooftop solar capacity having be formally integrated into municipal networks, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) reports. The actual figure is likely to be significantly larger, but many SSEG facilities have not been registered with either a municipality of the regulator.
The Kangnas Wind Farm on November 15 achieved its commercial operations date, making it the first Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) Bid Window 4 wind farm in the Northern Cape to come on stream.
Construction started in June, 2018 but was halted by the national Covid-19 lockdown, as were many other wind farm projects, only starting again after May 19.
In this opinion piece, Wärtsilä South African business development manager Wayne Glossop writes about the benefits of converting old coal-fired power plants to modern gas engine power plants. AGL Energy Limited undertook a successful transformation of an old coal plant to a modern flexible gas engine power plant to support more renewables into the South Australian power system
Financially an environmentally beleaguered energy and chemicals group Sasol is working to reset its business for a low-carbon world. Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer unpacks the emerging strategy.
Eskom Holdings, South Africa’s state power utility, was ordered to comply with pollution limits at three of its coal-fired plants this year while two more are being investigated, the government’s environment department said in its first disclosure about most of the orders. The violations listed in the National Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Report 2019-20 include excessive emissions of particulate matter and groundwater pollution. The violations and orders are as follows:
Vivo Energy, which sells and distributes Shell- and Engen-branded fuels and lubricants in Africa, believes it will be able to transform how energy is supplied to mines across the continent. It announced last month that it had reached an agreement to supply Canadian mining company Robex Resources’ Nampala gold mine, in Mali, with a hybrid fuel and solar energy solution for a period of five to fifteen years.
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