The Wood Structural Engineering Department at the University of Pretoria (UP) says policy needs to be developed to ensure wood forms part of the circular economy. A circular economy is an economic developmental approach designed to benefit businesses, society and the environment. In contrast to the ‘take, make, waste’ linear model, a circular economy is regenerative and aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.
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South Africans can now track government’s progress in economic and employment growth with up-to-date information on the new Operation Vulindlela dashboard, launched this week. Operation Vulindlela was launched last year as a joint initiative of the Presidency and National Treasury to unlock key economic reforms and to fast-track the trajectory of South Africa’s policy reforms.
In a surprise move, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that the licence-exemption cap on self- or distributed-generation plants would be increased from 1 MW to 100 MW to help address the country’s electricity crisis, which has been weighing down economic growth and confidence for more than a decade. The increase, which would be facilitated by an amendment to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act “within the next 60 days or sooner”, exceeds calls made by organised business and labour to increase the threshold to at least 50 MW, as well as allows the so-called embedded-generation plants to both wheel that electricity through the grid and sell it to nonrelated offtakers.
A coalition of investors overseeing a combined $41-trillion of assets have called on world leaders to set more ambitious greenhouse-gas emissions targets and end support for fossil fuels. DWS Group, Legal and General Investment Management and Pacific Investment Management Co were among 457 investors that wrote a joint letter to heads of State ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders summit that will start on Friday in Cornwall, England.
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has warned that, despite optimism generated by recent gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, this growth “has been rolled back” by the load-shedding implemented by State-owned power utility Eskom in the past two weeks, which escalated to Stage 4 on June 9. First-quarter GDP growth for this year grew by 1.1% compared with the last quarter of 2020, but the recent bouts of load-shedding has had a devastating impact on businesses in all sectors of the economy and is introducing hardship for citizens.
The Hawks have uncovered a well-organised syndicate selling illicit prepaid electricity on a large scale, costing Eskom millions in revenue, and arrested seven suspects. The Hawks pounced on the suspects, aged 28 to 67, in the early hours of Wednesday in Gauteng.
Sudan and Egypt agreed on Wednesday to coordinate efforts to push Ethiopia to negotiate “seriously” on an agreement on filling and operating a giant dam it is building on the Blue Nile, a joint statement said. The two countries, which are downstream from the dam, issued the statement after African Union-sponsored talks remained deadlocked.
Wholly women-owned energy company Meadows Energy has been announced as G7 Renewable Energies’ partner for the Oya hybrid energy project, which straddles the the Western and Northern Cape provinces in South Africa. The 128 MW Oya hybrid facility, which will eventually offer dispatchable renewable energy as part of the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), will use co-located wind turbines, solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, lithium-ion batteries and a hybrid controller that orchestrates all three technologies to provide dispatchable power to the grid as and when needed.
The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has welcomed the call from government to procure additional wind and solar energy from independent power producers (IPPs) to supply, over and above, what is currently allowed under their existing power purchase agreements (PPAs). SAWEA has engaged with its members to ascertain if the sector is able to provide additional power, in line with the recent call by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE).
European Union (EU) regulations that are supportive of bioethanol use will provide an opportunity for South Africa in terms of the production of ethanol fuels through various manufacturing methods. South Africa produces just over 400-million litres of ethanol a year, of which 180-million is used for potable purposes and traded within Africa at a good price, but it does not have a “very vibrant” ethanol sector yet, largely owing to the country’s unsupportive regulatory framework.
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