battery storage - The African Mirror

Dec

2023

South Africa seeks bids for 7,615 MW of new power generation

SOUTH Africa launched three bidding rounds for 7,615 megawatts (MW) of new power generation from renewable energy, natural gas and battery storage, part of efforts to overcome record power outages crippling economic output. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy said in a statement it had issued three requests for proposals (RFPs) for independent power producers to generate 5,000 MW of renewable energy, 2,000 MW from gas and 615 MW from battery storage. South Africa started procuring power from private developers more than a decade ago to supplement struggling state utility Eskom's ailing coal-fired power station fleet. Before Thursday it…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s power blackouts: solutions lie in solar farms and battery storage at scale, and an end to state monopoly

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

ROLLING blackouts are costing South Africa dearly. The electricity crisis is a barrier to growth, destroys investor confidence and handicaps almost every economic activity. It has raised input costs for producers and retailers and has triggered a new round of inflation and interest rate increases. Author DAVID RICHARD WALWYN, Professor of Technology Management, University of Pretoria Any solution will obviously incur cost because it will require the adoption of new technologies, such as large-scale grid-connected solar farms that are linked to battery energy storage. But these technologies are expensive. A solar farm consisting of 50 MW of photovoltaic panels with…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

SA’s green transition to cost over $64-billion

ENVIRONMENT

PROMIT MUKHERJEE SOUTH AFRICA'S efforts to wean itself off coal and focus on renewables, battery storage, electric vehicles and setting up a green hydrogen economy would require funding of over a trillion rand ($63.70 billion) by 2030, a top government official said on Tuesday. In November, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union agreed to offer a $8.5 billion package to help South Africa accelerate a transition from coal. South Africa is the world's 12th biggest emitter of climate-warming gases and the biggest in Africa. It is a coal-intensive economy where a fleet of decades-old and inefficient…