The failure of the R536-million DCD Wind Towers facility, established in the Coega Special Economic Zone in 2013, has become the poster child for the damage inflicted when South Africa’s political infighting and intrigue gives way to policy uncertainty and stalled implementation. The investment made sense on several levels: it was aligned with the global energy transition; it created 140 manufacturing jobs in an economy desperate to re-industrialise; it was established to produce a key component for a sector whose growth was underpinned by the country’s official electricity policy; it served a market growing in confidence in light of the international acclaim being showered on the procurement model facilitating its expansion; the activity was supported by an industrial policy that sought to unlock green manufacturing; and it had the financial backing of the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation and the province-owned Coega Development Corporation.
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Air compressor, pumps and generator rental supplier Rand-Air has supplied a new wind farm project, in the Eastern Cape, with energy solutions for on-site offices. The supplier provided 12 QLV model lighting towers, and four 60 kVA generators with distribution boards.
Energy project solutions provider UL has released a beta version of its Wind Resource Assessment Platform (WRAP) software, after the company began development on the wind energy yield assessment software last year. Released to market in June this year, UL renewable energy VP Michael Brower says WRAP ensures that the company is ideally equipped to support the local growing wind energy industry.
As more wind energy farms are constructed and contribute to employment, demand for the training and retraining of people to work on wind turbines will increase, which has consequently resulted in wind turbines safety training provider AID Renewables’ investing in improving its training processes and training-related infrastructure. The local wind-energy industry is expected to grow, as the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) 2019 has allocated an increased wind-energy contribution to the energy grid in the coming years.
Environment, Fisheries and Forestry Minister Barbara Creecy has indicated that government is likely to integrate green-economy components into the country’s Covid-19 economic recovery strategy, details of which are yet to be released by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Speaking during a webinar on Thursday, Creecy said that there was a growing understanding within government that promoting a more sustainable economic trajectory, which supported greater climate resiliency, could open up new industries.
Creamer Media’s Chanel de Bruyn speaks to Creamer Media Editor Terence Creamer about a just transition in South Africa’s energy sector and how the country should go about preparing the way for that transition.
On Wednesday, Eskom celebrated the arrival of its long-awaited replacement steam generators at its Koeberg nuclear power station in the Western Cape. In a statement released by the power utility, it said its six new steam generators arrived at its power plant on Tuesday.
The Aggeneys Solar and Konkoonsies II Solar utility-scale solar plants, in the Northern Cape, have started commercial operations.
The plants add 132 MW to South Africa’s power generation capacity and together generate 33.3 GWh/y of clean energy.
The steam generator replacement project, which is central to Eskom’s R20-billion programme to extend the 40-year design life of the Koeberg nuclear power station by a further 20 years, marked a major milestone this week with the arrival of the first units in Cape Town. The project, which was sanctioned by the Eskom board in 2010 and approved by the National Nuclear Regulator, involves the replacement of all six steam generators at Koeberg’s two units.
Renewable-energy jobs rose to 11.5-million globally last year, from 11-million in 2018, with the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry retaining its leading position with 3.8-million jobs, a new study shows. The ‘Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2020’, published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), estimates that 3.1-million of these solar PV jobs are in Asia, which added 55 GW of the 97 GW of new solar PV installed globally last year.
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