Energy security is critical to South Africa’s growth, higher levels of employment and socioeconomic development, yet the draft IRP 2023 seems not to recognise any particular urgency in addressing the persistent shortfall, allowing for the gap between supply and demand to continue to 2027 – or beyond. The draft plan, gazetted in early January 2024 for comment, has drawn widespread consensus across industry organisations that it needs to be comprehensively reworked to provide a clearer, more transparent and more urgent pathway to ensuring energy security for the country.
Energy management + the industrial environment is one of the topics we feature in this April issue of Electricity + Control and here we publish the views of SAWEA, representing its members in the South African wind energy sector. CEO of SAWEA, Niveshen Govender, speaking to Leigh Darroll, noted the serious questions and concerns members had raised in discussion of the draft document and said SAWEA is calling for an overhaul of the draft IRP 2023 – and the chance to review that before it is processed through parliament.
Also in Energy management + the industrial environment, leading OEM of industrial equipment WEG Africa points out that in the contemporary context of continuing load shedding, generators seldom serve as ‘standby’ equipment and are more likely needed for continual backup for extended periods of time. Craig Bouwer emphasises the importance of choosing the right generator to meet specific needs and sets out the different categories of applications as a guide for organisations looking for the right generator to bridge the electricity supply gaps during load shedding or other power outages.
In an article looking specifically at the timber industry, Associated Energy Services highlights opportunities for the industry to develop biomass, one of its primary by-products, as a fuel not only for its own use but for other energy users in other industries – and the factors to be considered in making this a viable business offshoot.
In Industry 4.0 + IIoT, as we see industries across the board increasingly relying on growing volumes of data to inform ongoing operations and optimise performance, the advantages of edge data centres, on site and providing low latency real-time information, are widely favoured. Jonathan Duncan of Vertiv emphasises the importance of ensuring adequate cooling – to protect valuable equipment and ensure data availability – for these smaller scale data centres often positioned in environments not designed to host such installations.
In Measurement + instrumentation, Comtest presents the Fluke tools designed to measure power quality – a key factor in managing energy costs and minimising energy waste in industrial facilities.
And in Safety of plant, equipment and people, Transfer Multisort Electronik – TME – explains the importance of using hearing protection equipment in many industrial environments where even relatively low-level noise, on a continuous basis, can be damaging to workers’ hearing – and impact on performance.
In our regular column on Reskilling, upskilling and training, we report that the IEPA has opened its new training centre in Benoni and share some of the courses available in this year’s training programme, for energy professionals and others in the industry keen to improve their skills.
Water supply and water quality are increasingly of concern for industry – just as they are for households and individual citizens across South Africa. Alison Groves of WSP in Africa highlights the importance of engineering solutions now, at local and national levels, to support water security into the future.
Write @ the back, Paul van Zijl of Starsight Energy outlines how deregulation of the energy sector in some African countries, including South Africa, is already driving innovation and could be extended across the continent to benefit households, businesses, trade and economic growth.
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