“Government will do whatever it takes to ensure a stable electricity supply,” said Tito Mboweni while delivering his budget speech in February, before announcing the allocation of R230-billion over ten years to achieve the restructuring of the electricity sector.
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He assured that the current shortfall will ease as critical maintenance is completed. He went on to announce the acceleration of Bid Window 4 of the independent producer programme for renewable energy and, that “the rapid decline in renewable energy prices will give new momentum to Bid Window 5.”
As a further signal to Government’s intentions to diversify power generation, he said that municipalities in financially good standing would soon be allowed to purchase electricity from independent power producers.
A few days before Mboweni’s budget speech, the first of Scatec Solar’s three Sirius Solar Park projects came online outside Upington, connecting a further 80 MW of renewable energy to Eskom’s grid. Ultimately, the three Sirius projects will contribute 258 MW of additional solar capacity to the grid, and all are expected to be completed within the next few months.
There are 27 REIPP projects that will soon add 2 300 MW to the grid, which should surely relieve some of the pressure on the currently unreliable coal plants that were the preferred technology choice of Eskom’s old regime for far too long.
Scatec Solar has also recently launched a lease offering of smaller scale plants for those wanting to reduce their dependence on diesel generators. This pre-assembled and containerised solution, combined with a financial leasing model, uses solar tracking and a modular system to enable scalability, quick installation and easy redeployment. A battery storage solution from Tesla or DEIF is an integral part of the offering, with the batteries being used to optimise combined diesel and solar networks or to supply solar-derived power earlier in the mornings and into the evenings.
“The combination of a leasing agreement and flexible contract length greatly reduces customers’ financial liabilities. Furthermore, using customers’ own sites for solar plants means that fewer permits and licenses are required which, combined with our pre-assembled product, results in shorter preparation and installation times,” says Raymond Carlsen, CEO of Scatec Solar.
A key topic for the Africa Energy Indaba currently underway in Cape Town is Africa’s Mini-Grid Agenda, which is being explored as a way of improving energy access for African people – as articulated in the region’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Underpinning the drive towards mini-grids is the lack of capacity of major power producers to reliably reach and serve remoter areas –extending a country’s main electrical grid is often unaffordable. This alone, immediately suggests the integration of smaller mini-grids that operate independently from the main grid.
Mini-grids comprise multiple electricity generators and energy storage systems that are interconnected to a distribution network for supplying local consumers. They generally involve small-scale generation in the 10 kW to 10 MW range and the idea is that a generation technology combination can deliver uninterrupted power in isolation from a national grid.
They are ideal for maximising Africa’s potential for renewable energy, particularly if sufficiently large modern storage systems are incorporated to cater for the cyclical and unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
The development of mini-grids presents several barriers, however, such as gaps in policy and regulation, the capacity of key stakeholders and access to funding. Hence the Africa Energy Indaba focus. Mini-grids could prove instrumental in providing clean energy with the necessary sustainability, thereby enabling African nations to achieve their commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reads the invitation to participate in this Energy Indaba discussion. “Our aim is to unlock the potential on mini-grid power projects and catalyse the business opportunity linked to developing these projects in Africa,” said the Indaba’s MD, Liz Hart prior to the event.
The Innovative engineering feature for this issue of MechChem Africa introduces a novel energy storage solution that uses liquid air at -196 °C as a highly efficient and large scale energy storage option – a 50 MW/400 MWh CRYOBattery™ solution from Highview Power has been connected to the grid to provide eight hours of energy storage; and 100 MW/800 MWh modular units are mooted for scaling up to meet higher energy requirements.
Solutions for Africa and South Africa’s energy access and reliability problems are numerous and increasingly affordable. They offer more flexibility, less risk and far more environmentally friendly carbon footprints than large and ageing coal-fired fleets.
In South Africa, we need not rely on the breakup of Eskom to resolve our domestic power issues. The landscape is sure to change rapidly as independent producers and discerning consumers see the benefits of cleaner and independently produced generation solutions.
