Mining companies are starting to heed the transition towards a low-carbon future by investing in wind energy, solar and gas.
This was relayed at the annual African wind energy summit, the Windaba, in Cape Town, on Wednesday.

Gold Fields VP and group head of carbon and energy Tsakani Mthombeni said the gold miner was gradually transitioning towards a low-carbon and renewable energy environment.

“Ten years ago, you would not have heard anyone talk about renewables in mining, but things are changing. Financiers locally and globally are coming under pressure to be seen and to be funding low carbon projects,” Mthombeni told a special session on mining. 

This week, Gold Fields became the first mining company in South Africa to publish its first Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TFCD) report to improve its disclosure of climate-related information to investors and other stakeholders. 

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The plan will seek to direct independent power producers (IPPs) to develop projects in areas such as Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga, where the coal industry will be negatively affected by the decommissioning of several Eskom power stations over the coming two decades, as well as the gold mining towns such as Klerksdorp, where production has been waning for decades.

It is envisaged that these two towns, together with areas surrounding Beaufort West, will be designated as Renewable Energy Development Zones (REDZs) by the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF), along with eight already selected during an earlier Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA), known as phase one. The phase-one zones were Gazetted for designation in 2018, and DEFF will now consider designating the three new zones selected in phase two.

Environmental approvals for projects developed in the REDZs are typically fast-tracked by the DEFF, owing to the fact that the areas have already been scoped for environmental risks. Such scoping for the mining-linked zones has been concluded by the department, with support from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). These expedited environmental processes, or SEAs, are applicable only within designated REDZs.

The mining areas identified for designation as REDZs during the phase-two SEA were chosen and prioritised by the CSIR in consultation with solar and wind developers. It emerged that wind developers would favour a REDZ in the Beaufort West area, while the Emalahleni and Klerksdorp areas emerged as preferred locations from a solar photovoltaic (PV) perspective

Kabi Solar director Mike Levington, who served on the steering committee who oversaw the REDZs’ selection, tells Engineering News Online that the aim is to create a detailed framework that  maximises the employment and industrialisation spin-offs from onshore wind and solar PV, the deployment of which is expected to rise strongly, owing to the fact that the two technologies have emerged as the cheapest new-build option.

The plan will also be aligned with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s initiative to create industrial development master plans for various sectors under its ‘re-imagined industrial strategy’, as well as the Public Private Growth Initiative (PPGI), set up with the aim of supporting President Cyril Ramaphosa’s drive to galvanise $100-billion-worth of investment between 2018 and 2022.

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Transition to a cost effective and fossil carbon-free energy system is imminent for South Africa, so is the mitigation of issues associated with the ‘water-energy nexus’ and their consequent impacts on the climate.
The country’s key fossil carbon mitigation option lies in the energy sector, especially in shifting away from the coal-dependent power system. Pathways towards a fully decarbonised and least cost electricity system are investigated for South Africa. The energy transition is simulated for five scenarios, assessing the impact of various factors such as sector coupling, with and without greenhouse gas (GHG) emission costs. South Africa’s energy transition is simulated using an hourly resolved model until 2050. This modelling approach synthesises and reflects in-depth insights of how the demand from the power sector can be met. The optimisation for each 5-year time period is carried out based on assumed costs and technological status until 2050. The modelling outcomes reveal that solar PV and wind energy, supplying about 71% and 28% of the demand respectively in the Best Policy Scenario for 2050, can overcome coal dependency of the power sector. The levelised cost of electricity increases just slightly from 49.2 €/MWh in 2015 to 50.8 €/MWh in the Best Policy Scenario, whereas it increases significantly to 104.9 €/MWh in the Current Policy Scenario by 2050. Further, without considering GHG emissions costs, the cost of electricity slightly increases from 44.1 €/MWh in 2015 to 47.1 €/MWh in the Best Policy Scenario and increases up to 62.8 €/MWh in the Current Policy Scenario by 2050. The cost of electricity is 25% lower in the Best Policy Scenario than in the Current Policy Scenario without factoring in GHG emissions costs and further declined to 50% with GHG emissions costs. The Best Policy Scenario without GHG emissions costs led to 96% renewables and the remaining 4% is supplied by coal and gas turbines, indicating pure market economics. The results indicate that a 100% renewable energy system is the least-cost, least-water intensive, least-GHG-emitting and most job-rich option for the South African energy system in the mid-term future. No new coal and nuclear power plants are installed in the least-cost pathway, and existing fossil fuel capacities are phased out based on their technical lifetime.

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The three solar PV plants, totalling 26 MW when combined, would power three of Harmony Gold’s mines in the region. 

Harmony Gold CEO Peter Steenkamp said during a presentation in August that the company had been looking into energy supply alternatives for some of its long-life mines in the Free State and had applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for licensing.

In May, Nersa electricity licensing, compliance and dispute resolution head Dennis Seemela said it was ready to consider licence applications for small-scale embedded generator plants between 1 MW and 10 MW.

He said that this would be in line with the “blanket deviation” from the Integrated Resources Plan provided by former Energy Minister Jeff Radebe in a letter delivered to Nersa earlier that month.

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South Africa’s utility Eskom is preparing to launch a tender for 1.4 gigawatt-hours of battery storage that will need to be installed by December 2021.
The large-scale energy storage tender, the first of its kind in the country and in Africa as a whole, will be split into two phases, with an initial 200 megawatts/800 megawatt-hours of capacity to be built by December 2020, an Eskom official said. 

This first phase of implementation will be divided into four packages, and will be followed by 160 megawatts/640 megawatt-hours to be installed a year later, Prince Moyo, general manager for power delivery engineering at Eskom, said during a Wednesday webinar.

The second phase will include 60 megawatts of solar to be integrated with the battery storage, along with an asset performance management system.

This first phase of implementation will be divided into four packages, and will be followed by 160 megawatts/640 megawatt-hours to be installed a year later, Prince Moyo, general manager for power delivery engineering at Eskom, said during a Wednesday webinar.

The second phase will include 60 megawatts of solar to be integrated with the battery storage, along with an asset performance management system.

The tender has already been approved by South Africa’s Ministry of Finance, Moyo said. The only ministry that has not yet signed off is the Department of Public Enterprises, Moyo added. That consent “has been escalated to the highest level,” he said, without committing to a launch date for the solicitation. “It’s imminent,” he said.

Moyo called the battery tender “a flagship project” for Eskom, which supplies around 90 percent of South Africa’s electricity via more than 45 gigawatts of generation. “We are moving toward cleaner power,” he said.

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The European Investment Bank has a draft policy currently being considered that would end all of their fossil fuel financing beyond 2020. The draft is due for a decision this fall.

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South African startup company Plentify has won the South African edition of the EDF Pulse Africa innovation competition.
The competition is aimed at supporting African innovators committed to the continent’s energy development.

Plentify turns water heaters into grid-connected thermal batteries, which intelligently “recharge” when electricity is abundant on the grid, thereby improving reliability, decreasing reliance on expensive generation and saving water heating costs.

The company achieves this using an easy-to-install Internet of Things controller, a mobile application and a cloud-based artificial intelligence engine, which turns each water heater on or off, based on the needs of the user and the grid.

As winner, Plentify will participate in the grand finale of EDF Pulse Africa, which will be held in Paris, France, in November.

EDF Pulse Africa was created in 2017 by integrated electricity company EDF to discover the African continent’s technological gems and support innovation by involving local entrepreneurs in the development of innovative offers.

The EDF Pulse Africa tour spanned seven countries on the continent, discovering candidates that were plugged into their local economies.

The winner of each national edition is awarded a place in the finale.

Seven startups were selected to compete in the South African final, presenting energy solutions in off-grid power generation, electrical power applications and services, and access to water through the use of electricity.

The competition was open to startups and small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 50 employees in the 54 African countries.

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Shopping centre developer Flanagan & Gerard Property Development and Investment has invested R16-million in the installation of solar plants at its malls, in an effort to save energy and reduce its carbon footprint.
So far, about 3 MVA of solar energy generation capacity has been installed at three of the company’s co-owned shopping centres, namely Vaal Mall, Middleburg Mall and Springs Mall.

The developer is also planning to add a solar plant to its co-owned Mall of the North, which should be live before the end of the year.

Additionally, Highveld Mall will introduce solar to its energy mix early next year, increasing the total solar energy capacity at Flanagan & Gerard’s retail assets to more than 5 MVA.

All of the centres fitted so far have rooftop solar installations, while Vaal Mall has a carport installation.

“We bring these shopping centres in line with the Flanagan & Gerard philosophy of making a positive environmental impact by using renewable resources,” said MD Paul Gerard.

He added that although South Africa was growing at a rapid rate in the alternative energy sector, it was not growing fast enough to relieve some of the pressure currently experienced by State-owned power utility Eskom.

“The private sector has a responsibility to continue accelerating the expansion of renewable energy,” Gerard highlighted.

Currently, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa grants independent solar generation for installations up to 1 MVA. Anything over this requires a generation licence, and only a certain number of licences are issued each year.

Flanagan & Gerard is in the process of applying for additional licences for their malls to enable additional installations in future.

Future solar plant installations are anticipated for Ballito Junction, Thavhani Mall and Morningside Shopping Centre.
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Energy equipment and waste disposal solutions provider Bio-Dynamic Fuel (BDF) is focusing on partnering with food service and retail businesses to deploy the company’s waste disposal and renewable-energy solutions on a national level.

The company’s technology entails converting used cooking oil into biodiesel.

“Our technology is disruptive in that it empowers outlets to recycle used cooking oil on site into biodiesel, which they can use in diesel-powered equipment or vehicles. BDF competes with used cooking oil collectors, large-scale biofuel refineries and diesel supply pricing,” states BDF sales director Shaun Dalrymple.

The programme will also focus on the company’s developed B-Tech 40 ℓ processor and chemical mix, which converts 40 ℓ of used cooking oil into biofuel in less than eight hours.

“The B-Tech 40 technology has a proven record and continuous improvement has been applied for early prototypes. The short-term priority is to roll out this technology to the food service and retail industry with our existing trading partners,” notes Dalrymple.

Medium- to large-scale used cooking oil food producers form the majority of BDF’s core clients, hence the company has focused deployment of this technology at whole companies, as opposed to focusing on individual outlets within large companies. Dalrymple highlights that this is done to ensure that the technology is used across organisations and on a national level.

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​Enertrag AG, a clean-energy group that specialises in electricity and hydrogen from renewable sources, operates the wind-hydrogen Hybridkraftwerk plant near Prenzlau, in Germany. This hybrid power plant, which has been functioning since October 2011, generates climate-neutral hydrogen through an electrolysis process using wind energy.

It is envisaged that the green hydrogen fuel proposed for the 20 GMA buses would be produced from a combination of energy from wind and solar photovoltaic technologies, Enertrag has outlined in an advertisement in Mining Weekly. GreenCape has been named as joint programme coordinator and other consortium members listed include the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Navitas, Fraunhofer IEE and IKEM, with Busmark and the GMA supporters of the initiative. Fuel cells will allow the buses to become part of the decarbonising world by catalysing the green hydrogen into clean electricity that powers the buses in an emission-free manner.

Minerals Council South Africa CEO Roger Baxter last week suggested that Johannesburg’s Rea Vaya bus rapid transit system could be considered for conversion to hydrogen.

The Minerals Council’s own stationary fuel cell, which enables the building to be less reliant on the electricity grid and also uses repurposed by-products, such as heat, to contribute to the building’s ambient temperature in winter, has been registered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Programme of Activities 9437: Cogeneration at Commercial sites.

South Africa has the combined solar and wind potential to produce hydrogen competitively. The country’s combined solar and wind power provide a hydrogen production capacity factor of close to 100% during daylight hours and 30% during the night, which is above the international norm of about 22%, according to CSIR senior research engineer Thomas Roos.

South Africa’s National Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Research, Development and Innovation Strategy, known as Hydrogen South Africa (HySA), has reached the third phase of its 15-year programme, which comprises three five-year phases.

HySA – an initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) previously the Department of Science and Technology – aims to create local capacity and knowledge that will lead to the development of value-add products in the hydrogen fuel cell technology sector for domestic and international markets.

HySA strategy is to create knowledge and human resource capacity and develop high-level commercial activities in hydrogen fuel cell technology through beneficiating platinum group metals (PGMs). The HySA programme is therefore a government initiative towards a hydrogen economy in South Africa, DSI hydrogen and energy director Dr Cosmas Chiteme has outlined to Mining Weekly.

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