With cleaner energy technology rapidly advancing and industries increasingly aiming to stabilise their power supply through off-grid generation alternatives, energy solutions provider Vuselela Energy director Jacques Malan is confident that cogeneration systems can offer a valuable power generation alternative in South Africa.
Although South Africa has, historically, relied quite heavily on coal generated power, Malan believes that, at the rate at which technology is progressing, coal will be replaced globally by cleaner forms of generation in a much shorter time span than most people predict – perhaps even within the next 30 years.
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He warns that South Africa should begin to prepare for this by supplementing or supplanting future coal build with the development of gas-based infrastructure while continuing to encourage independent power producer (IPP) projects.
“The ideal situation would be for IPPs to focus on power generation – using whatever competitive technology is at their disposal – while State-owned power utility Eskom focuses on transmission. The utility could consider borrowing from concepts used in the US natural gas industry, where a fixed fee is charged for transmission, which might be based on distance to offtake. Municipalities and/or private entities could then be responsible for distribution.

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Sibanye Gold’s Beatrix gold mining operations in South Africa has installed a 2 MW on-site power generation solution supplied by Aggreko that utilises naturally occurring methane gas released during mining.

The 2 MW plant generates additional power for Beatrix from a resource which was previously being flared.

As this was a completely new initiative, an accurate understanding of the reliability of the gas supply was unclear and as a result Sibanye Gold opted for an Aggreko rental solution as the flexibility of rental meant that the precise amount of generation capacity could be easily tailored to fit the amount of gas supply as it became clearer. Aggreko also developed a system incorporating a gas accumulator and a methane sensor.

‘We knew that we wanted to generate electricity from the gas as it was a precious resource that was being completely unutilised through flaring,’ commented Dirk van Greuning, Environmental Engineering Manager, Sibanye Gold, ‘Due to the precise characteristics of the gas supply being uncertain, the flexibility offered by the Aggreko solution was very attractive compared to the option of buying a fleet of generators.’

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The government of South Africa is planning to deploy more combined heat and power plants as part of an overall plan to boost capacity and prevent future blackouts.

The South African Department of Energy is to add more projects to those announced in November last year in the third window of its renewable energy independent power producers (REIPP) procurement programme. 

Minister Ben Martins (pictured) said 800 MW of cogeneration would be procured in May.

He said that there would be another procurement process to include other bidders. Additional capacity would be allocated to the third window as the prices offered by the bidders in this window were more competitive than those in the first two bidding windows. 

“The inclusion of additional bidders will therefore increase the number of independent power producers (IPPs) contributing towards the Department of Energy’s effort to ensure that renewable energy forms a significant part of the energy mix,” the department said in a statement. 

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In addition, the DoE planned to procure 474 MW fromnear-term natural gas projects as outlined under the Medium-Term Risk Mitigation Plan, which also included a further 800 MW allocation for cogeneration capacity, arising from biomass, industrial waste and combined heat and power sources.

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The South African Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy has, through its chairperson, called for new set of public hearings into the issue of cogeneration in the country.

Sisa Njikelana has also recommended that the next set of hearings include the Department of Energy (DoE), Eskom, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and the South African Local Government Association, and that it should explore the possibility of ensuring greater support for cogeneration across all spheres of government.


The chairperson made the call after hearing concerns about the barriers being placed in the way of cogeneration’s progress.

Lawmakers were told that there was potential for South Africa to produce as much as 3500 MW of electricity through the cogeneration of electricity from waste heat fuels.

The Industrial Development Corporation, which recently supported the an 8 MW cogeneration investment by SA Calcium Carbide (SACC), in Newcastle, argued that higher power prices were creating an opportunity for industrial facilities to tap into cogeneration prospects that were hitherto not economically viable.

The State-owned bank estimated that South African mineral smelters and chemical plants had the potential to generate more than 2 000 MW of electricity from hot gases.

However, various presenters to the July Parliamentary hearings expressed frustration with the slow pace of uptake, according to Creamer media.

Particular concern was raised over the absence of incentives, as well as the fact that various obstacles preventing the development of such facilities had not yet been removed.

It was noted that the current version of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2010) did not explicitly recognise cogeneration and was vague on the treatment of new projects.

The DoE is currently redrafting the IRP2010 and consultations on the new generation roadmap should be held in the coming months.|

Questions were also raised about where South Africa’s regulatory framework was sufficiently supportive of cogeneration investment, particularly given that little progress had been made on the so-called cogeneration feed-in tariff (Cofit). As with the renewable feed-in tariff, however, the Cofit was likely to run foul of the Public Finance Management Act, which stipulates competitive bidding as part of any public procurement process.

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