The decisive steps recently announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa and aimed at taking South Africa beyond its long-running electricity supply constraints and recurring periods of load shedding, have been broadly welcomed. The interventions are focused on: enabling the maintenance and stabilisation of Eskom’s existing fleet of power stations; accelerating the implementation of new generation capacity through the REIPPPP and increased private investment to scale up megawatts available to the grid; and transforming the electricity sector to position it for future sustainability.
A stable, reliable energy supply is critical to keeping the wheels of industry turning and people employed, and indeed to all public and private sector operations, to households and individuals, and to economic growth. The interventions announced by the President are welcomed as good news for industry, for the economy, for job creation and for the country.
Ramaphosa made the point too, that the crisis we are facing calls for all South Africans to be part of the solution; to contribute in whatever way we can to ending energy scarcity in the country. Surely a consideration to keep in mind, day by day.
In the August 2022 edition of Electricity + Control, we feature Industry 4.0 and the IIoT, Energy management + the industrial environment, Sensors + switches, and Plant maintenance, test + measurement. All these aspects of industrial operations can contribute to the efficient use of energy, energy savings, and the conservation of resources, to a greater or lesser degree.
In Industry 4.0 + the IIoT, John Browett, GM at CLPA Europe, highlights the value of time-sensitive networking (TSN) in enabling IT and OT convergence, streamlining communications infrastructure and supporting greater productivity, efficiency and agility in industrial operations.
Regarding the seemingly ever-increasing volumes of data generated in businesses and industry, Andrew Cruise, MD of Routed SA, outlines the pros and cons of colocating privately owned IT/OT servers and services in data centres to provide stable data access and availability.
Looking at Energy management + the industrial environment – and soaring energy prices globally – Godfrey Marema MD of Eaton Southern Africa, says it is clear that the transition to renewable energy needs to speed up, and current disruptions around the world should be seen as a catalyst for the rapid technological and behavioural change we need to move to a sustainable energy system.
Dwibin Thomas of Schneider Electric, points to digitalisation of the grid as a gateway for improved efficiencies and better grid management – and the first step towards the smart grids of the future.
At one of SA’s major coal-fired power stations, Babcock is involved in upgrading the original electrostatic precipitators it installed on the boiler units, with new ESPs that are equipped to better manage fly ash in the flue gas and meet revised emissions regulations for cleaner energy production.
In Sensors + switches, R&C Instrumentation highlights advances in IR line scanners which provide for greater ease of use and offer robust new capabilities to control fast-moving production processes and eliminate a host of temperature-related problems.
In Plant maintenance, test + measurement, Comtest presents a Fluke maintenance note on moving a production line, setting out the key steps to be considered in the process and for safe start-up and testing once the move is complete, with particular attention given to the electrical systems.
And John Evans of WearCheck highlights the risks of using diesel mixed with illuminating paraffin, the measures that are in place to prevent the illegal practice, and how users can test diesel to ensure they are working with the real thing – in vehicles, generators or other applications.
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