Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has affirmed that nuclear energy is as important to the country’s ‘Green Transformation’ (GX) as is renewable energy. He was addressing, via video, the second meeting of the country’s Green Transformation Implementation Council, “World Nuclear News” has reported. “[R]enewable energy and nuclear power are decarbonised energies that are indispensable for promoting GX,” affirmed Kishida. He asked the Council to submit a report, by the end of this year, “on all measures, including the institutional framework for evaluating these as options for the future, and how the parties concerned should make efforts to further deepen public understanding”. The report should present “concrete conclusions”.
Posts
AltX- and Aim-listed Kibo Energy’s share price on the JSE rose by more than 9% on August 25, after announcing that it had started a request for proposals (RFP) process to investigate the feasibility of replacing fossil fuel (coal) with renewable biofuel. This followed an extensive review of the company’s operations and assets, with the company planning to dispose of all its coal mining assets, but still retaining the associated energy generation projects through the introduction of innovative biofuel technology.
Nigeria needs at least $10-billion in additional funding per year to reach net zero by 2060 in a plan that would involve gas as a transition fuel, officials said while launching the nation’s energy transition plan on Wednesday. The effort aims also to expand power access to all of Nigeria’s 200 million citizens by 2030, a move officials said was essential to ensure a fair transition for developing nations.
Even though government paved the way for municipalities to generate or procure their own electricity from independent power producers (IPPs) a little under two years ago, only 25% of them are equipped with either a basic or comprehensive small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) process, or are putting one in place.
A further 25% of municipalities do not have the internal capacity to establish or manage these processes, but may come do so with some support, while the remaining 50% of municipalities are not in a state to handle any additional responsibility, owing to long-standing financial difficulty or mismanagement issues, Sustainable Energy Africa director Mark Borchers noted this week.
A homegrown expandable minigrid solution that researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) have been developing, testing and refining for several years has now been fully commercialised to be marketed and sold locally and throughout Africa as the Peco Powerbrick. The innovation is based on the pioneering work of academics and students at the university’s School of Electrical and Information Engineering who, under the direction of Professor Willie Cronje, have been working on an expandable and affordable offgrid solution for low-income African households since 2014.
Members of the South African Iron and Steel Institute (SAISI) have come out in full support of the proposed six-month ban on the export of scrap metal from South Africa. SAISI members include ArcelorMittal South Africa, Cape Gate, Columbus Stainless, Force Steel, Scaw Metals, SA Steel Mills and Unica Iron and Steel, while Safal Steel and Grinding Media are affiliated members.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has published a list of the most recent 35 renewables projects – including a 100 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Northern Cape – to be registered following a recent market reform allowing for large-scale distributed generation projects to proceed without a licence. The projects were officially registered during the August 22 meeting of the Nersa regulator executive committee, which also registered the first two 100 MW solar PV projects in May and subsequently registered 16 distributed-generation projects in June, with a combined capacity of 211 MW.
Energy and chemicals group Sasol expects to invest the bulk of the R15-billion to R25-billion it is budgeting to facilitate a 30% reduction in its carbon emissions by 2030 between 2025 and 2027, having spent only modest capital on such projects to date. The expenditure forms part of the JSE-listed group’s yearly ‘maintain and transform’ capital budget, which is expected to rise to between R26-billion and R27-billion in its 2023 financial year.
South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom is considering disconnecting the City of Tshwane, which includes the nation’s capital, Pretoria, due to the municipality failing to pay its outstanding debt. Tshwane breached the electricity supply agreement it has with Eskom by failing to pay R1.6-billion, which was due and payable on Aug. 17, the utility said in a statement on Twitter on Tuesday.
State-owned utility Eskom and the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre (Saretec) have signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) to formalise the collaboration between the two entities in developing renewable energy artisan skills in South Africa to support the implementation of Eskom’s just energy transition (JET) strategy. In support of this strategy, Eskom has a pipeline of clean energy projects at various stages of development and has acknowledged that there is a “dire” lack of skills along the value chain.
INDUSTRY NEWS
WHERE TO FIND US
Address
9 Yellow Street
Botshabelo Industrial Area
Botshabelo, Free State
Call / Email Us
Tel: +27 (0) 61 956 6772
Email: info@transfix.co.za
