The Copenhagen Accord on Climate Change

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What does the Copenhagen Accord mean to South Africa? Well I think while everyone is enjoying their summer holiday, we will return to a 2010 that will be mixed with the excitement of the World Cup Soccer, together with the major challenge of Climate Change that the country will need to combat. Regardless of what has been achieved in Copenhagen, the effects of Climate Change will continue to have a negative impact on the economy and society of South Africa. Will our politicians and leaders of industry be part of the solution or part of the problem?

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Micro Wind Turbine Project at Wits University

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Almost a year ago, Kayema donated a micro wind turbine to the Wits Electrical Engineering School. The turbine has been running for several months with great success. Here is a presentation describing the latest results saupec2009-braid

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Solar Water Heaters: The Virtual Power Stations

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Eskom has been racking its brains to come up with simple, economical solutions to its current crisis. One of these solutions it, believes is a national solar water heating program that will reduce peak demand on its currently strained electricity grid by 5,000 MW with a total investment of R70billion, R30bn less than a coal fired base load power station of the same size.

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NERSA Approves 31% price increase

Filed Under Cleantech, South Africa | Tags: none | Leave a Comment

With NERSA’s recent approval of another 31% price increase, South African consumers of electricity are starting to feel the pain of rising electricity prices. Wheras six months ago, people were skeptical as to whether there really was an energy crisis in South Africa, today I don’t even have to open my mouth before prospective clients start explaining to me how painful it is to see their electricity bills go through the roof. Unfortunately folks, this is just the beginning. As discussed before on this blog, you can expect a tripling of pricese within a few years. And if politically there is a strong backlash against this trend, the alternative is more blackouts. Which one would you prefer?

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Eskom announces fossil fuels are alive and well

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Though it seems counter intuitive, Eskom announced today that its massive build up of coal fired power stations is going ahead as planned. This seems quite odd when the South African government has announced countless times its intention to introduce new independent power generators into the market so that upto 30% of power generated is powered by non Eskom producers. While Eskom is building power plants at a rapid pace, to date the IPP (independent power producers) program promised by the government has yet to get off the ground. What makes today’s announcement by Eskom’s Brian Dames to be even more confusing is that in the same statement it was announced that the real cost of the 4,800 MW Medupi coal fired base load power station will now cost R120 billion instead of the originally projected R78 billion. This means the capital cost of a Megawatt will now cost R25 million per MW.  This is only half of the capital investment required to install a concentrated solar thermal power plant today (see: An Overview of CSP in Europe and MENA) while CSTP has no fuel costs andarguably a longer life expectancy.  If one includes the fuel costs within only a few years of operationing a coal fired plant, the costs will become prohibitive when compared to CSTP.  Any comments out there?

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Congratulations South Africa

Filed Under Cleantech, Global Warming, South Africa | Tags: none | Leave a Comment

Being a part of the recent drive towards renewable energy implementation in South Africa, I feel proud that the decision makers put the citizens first instead of any narrow interests of one or another sector. Its a tough job to put the right policies in place, one which I don’t envy at all, yet when we look back in ten years time hopefully we will mark the implementation of this Feed in Tariff as the turning point of an exciting journey towards carbon free energy generation.

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