Representatives from governments, energy regulators and utilities from seven Southern African countries (South Africa, Zambia, Mauritius, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania) will meet for a three days meeting in the Cape Town in the period 23 – 27 March, 2020.

Renewable Energy (RE) Net-Metering business models play an important role in increasing access to energy. The private sector investments in the RE technologies and business models deem to compensate insufficient investments of the national utilities and to overcome the shortage of electrical energy supply. The Energy Regulation Board (ERB) of Zambia is aiming to unlock a Net-Metering regulation in the country, with a support from the Increased Access to Electricity and Renewable Energy production (IAEREP) project, funded by the European Union.

The ERB and the National Energy Regulator South Africa (NERSA) agreed to organize an international exchange visit to learn about the current net-metering practice in the City of Cape Tow

The programme foresees a hands-on exchange between the representatives of public institutions and private sector (i.e. Prosumer, Developer and Finance). We are kindly asking for your support to link us with relevant individuals in Cape Town with experience as a Prosumer, Developer or a Financier. We hope to find candidates, which are open for such an exchange and interested to share their experience with the “REQUIREMENTS FOR SMALL-SCALE EMBEDDED GENERATION” regulation from the City of Cape Town.

We are looking forward to a call at the end of this week to discuss details of our cooperation and we will be happy to welcome a representative from your organization during this exchange.
Sincerely,
Kai W. Schröder
Lead Consultant, Renewable Energy
Enhancement of the Policy, Legal and Regulatory Environment and
Capacity Building for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency;
Increased Access to Electricity and Renewable Energy Production (IAEREP), EU-funded project
schroeder@celanx.com
Phone: +260 968 825 704
WhatsApp: +4915202901951

​For my client, I am on a confidential recruitment search mission to find their next MD for Africa.

For my client, I am on a confidential recruitment search mission to find their next MD for Africa. This is a full relocation, permanent & full time assignment working from Africa. An Operations role, candidates must have hydropower plant (Finance, Operations and Technical) management experience.

As the Managing Director the Main Tasks will be:
·Strategic leadership - Establish the company as a high quality IPP focused on small to medium scale renewable energies & hydropower projects in Sub-Saharan Africa
·People Leadership and Development – guide, motivate and develop future leaders across the company
·Delivery of targets and budgets – sets business targets jointly with the management team and the BOD and ensures that these are achieved
·Health, Safety and Environment – ensures all activities strictly adhere to the HSE and business compliance standards and regulations
·Manages BOD and shareholder relationships – holds and oversees Board and Shareholder interaction
·Build relationships with stakeholders in the IPP sector including technology providers, lenders, governments and regulators.

Your Experience and Skills:
·Minimum 15 yrs. of progressive managerial positions and a minimum of 5 years in general management
·Master’s degree in business or engineering
·P&L responsibilities for a business with highly complex operations
·Experience managing people directly and indirectly in a matrix organization
·Strong proven analytical and communication skills
·Track record of leadership that will engage, motivate and drive a team to achieved desired results
·Leadership ability to inspire confidence and empowerment in a team as well as hold team accountable for results
·Ability to balance short term and long-term view, drill down into details, challenges and issues as required to understand current reality of a business and future desired state
·Demonstrated ability to organize and manage multiple priorities using effective problem solving / resolution skills and a team

If you have interest in this position, please send your resume and motivational letter to me at: andy.shaw@shawenergyltd.com
Sorry to say that i am unable to provide any further information until such time the board & shareholders agree to shortlist you for interviews.

regards
Andy Shaw
Director, Development & Recruitment
Shaw Energy Recruitment Group
www.shawenergyltd.com

Description - Country - Closing Date

IMPLEMENTATION OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS – South Africa - 17 Feb 2020
REQUEST FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS – South Africa - 31 Mar 2020
SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS SUITABLE FOR RAIL AND PORT – South Africa - 04 Feb 2020 
REPAIR AND RENTAL CONTRACT OF STANDBY GENERATORS – South Africa - 24th Jan 2020 
ELECTRICAL GENERATORS AND ONE THREE PHASE UPS – South Africa - 31st Jan 2020 

Tender information available to SAAEA Members     

By Kevin Bloom - Daily Maverick
If history brings insight and insight brings clarity, 2020 must be the year humanity responds with effective action to the greatest threat it has ever faced. From Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to Exxon Mobil and our own coal sector, the fossil fuel industry has consistently beaten the lawmakers — now our world is on fire. But with rich nations like Australia suddenly on the climate frontlines, the courts may be ready to push back. For South Africans, who’ll be directly affected by a raft of climate-related cases set down for 2020, the outcome couldn’t be more personal.

“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”

Two centuries back, when the French novelist Honore de Balzac wrote these words, the stakes were lower. The sixth mass extinction was not yet a lived reality, the polar ice caps were not yet disappearing into the sea and Paris, Balzac’s hometown, was not sweltering in 40°C summer heat. Anthropogenic carbon emissions, or what there were of them, came mostly from oil lamps, wood fires and coal stoves — James Watt’s steam engine, although commercialised, was three decades away from ushering in the industrial age. The world may or may not have been a happier place, but it was more or less intact.

By the late 1800s, around the time that Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius was calculating the connection between C02 emissions and the Earth’s temperature — a doubling in greenhouse gas content, the Nobel laureate concluded, would heat the planet by 5-6°C — the system was primed for the great unravelling.

Because what was clear, even then, was that the law had been outgunned by the energy industry. The Standard Oil Company, the world’s first major fossil fuel conglomerate, had eliminated the competition to seize control of 95% of US oil production, and the government was trying to break the company up. But founder John D Rockefeller had created a maze of holding structures and trusts, which rendered Standard Oil impervious to public investigation.

“You could argue its existence from its effects,” wrote Ida Tarbell in her celebrated history of the conglomerate, “but you could not prove it.”

Tarbell may have been familiar with Balzac’s metaphor about spiders and flies. She had faced the commercial Machiavellianism of the Gilded Age head-on, when her father — a small oil producer — had refused Rockefeller’s offer of a buy-out. Her personal experience of the consequences of that decision had gestated for 30 years, until she parlayed it into what Smithsonian Magazine termed a “redefinition” of investigative journalism: a 19-part series (and book) that unearthed the kickbacks, collusions and conspiracies upon which Rockefeller had built his empire. In the end, Tarbell’s muckraking achieved what the US government, acting alone, could not — by the time she was done, Standard Oil was no more.

Fast forward 120 years, past the short-lived hiatus of the Progressive Era (when, thanks in no small part to Tarbell, social and political reform held out for once against Big Money), and Balzac’s metaphor was back with a vengeance. In late October 2019, Exxon Mobil found itself in the New York State Supreme Court, on charges of lying to its shareholders about the potential future costs of the climate crisis. On its merits, the case was sound, with the state prosecutor leaning on the ground-breaking work of journalists to argue that “the company failed to manage the risks in the way it promised.” But the judge, who refused to recuse himself after it was revealed that he held $250,000 in Exxon stock, dismissed the case on 10 December 2019, ruling that there was “no proof” the company had duped investors.

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​

The final carbon offset regulations, gazetted 29 November 2019, favour small scale renewables,
applying a blanket eligibility to projects below 15MW. 

Due to concerns from stakeholders regarding the environmental and financial additionality, larger projects will only be eligible for generating offsets to be used under the carbon tax, when the cost of purchasing the power from
these projects is higher than R1.09 per kWh. Similar restrictions apply to projects in respect of the IPP bid programme for which power purchase agreements have been signed on or before 9 May 2013.
Lodewijk Nell, partner at EcoMetrix Africa, comments that National Treasury has struck a good balance, by on the one hand lowering the 50MW eligibility threshold to a more stringent 15MW, while on the other hand providing relief for projects which remain
eligible if the cost price exceeds R1.09 per kWh.
Further technical amendments compared to the draft regulations include declaring temporary
credits ineligible and additional requirements regarding offset certificates issued. Offset
certificates issued for the purpose of utilising offsets shall specify the tax period to which the
offsets will be applied and state that certificates are not transferable. The certificates need to be
retained for a minimum of 15 years.

Although various sections of the offset regulation need further in-depth analysis regarding the
exact meaning and impact, we are happy with the amendments and look forward to supplying the
local offset market with credits from various projects we have in our portfolio, says Henk Sa,
partner and offset trading executive at EcoMetrix Africa. Our preliminary supply and demand
calculations adjusted to the new regulations, shows an undersupply and currently we envisage a
carbon price to establish in the range of 60 to 90 Rand.

For any enquiries regarding this article please contact:
Lodewijk Nell
Partner at EcoMetrix Africa
078 704 2678
lodewijk.nell@ecometrix.co.za

The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has called for the immediate release of available wind power into the national grid, as the country continues to face daily load-shedding.

After days of implementing Stage 1 to Stage 4 power cuts, State-owned Eskom on Monday evening implemented unprecedented Stage 6 power cuts after the heavy rainfall in some areas of the country exacerbated the already constrained power supply situation.

Eskom explained in a statement that the Stage 6 load-shedding was declared as a result of failed units at the Medupi power station, flooding at the Kriel mine and flooding at the Camden power station.

The power utility late on Monday scaled back to Stage 4 load-shedding and, on Tuesday, said that at 05:43 breakdowns were at 15 200 MW. It was working to reduce unplanned breakdowns to below 9 500 MW and to stop load-shedding by next week.

It pointed out that the probability for load-shedding remained high for the remainder of this week.

The power cuts have resulted in a number of mining companies, including diamond miner Petra Diamonds and gold miner Harmony Gold, halting operations following requests by Eskom and over safety concerns for mine employees working underground.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday acknowledged the “devastating” impact of load-shedding on the economy. Economists have warned that the latest round of load-shedding may push South Africa into a recession.

In light of the ongoing electricity supply constraints, which is unlikely to be resolved soon, the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association on Monday called for government to enable a greater contribution from small-scale embedded generation.

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Energy efficiency is essential no matter what your power source but even more so if you have an off-grid solar system. You must consider all aspects of the installation from its setup to real-time use. Many things are common sense, such as lowering your thermostat at night. Others aren’t as obvious but can drain your pocketbook if you’re not careful.

Your system will include four components: solar or PV panels, charge controller, a battery bank, and an inverter. Other parts will vary based on the design of your setup and energy needs. Let’s do a deep dive into an off-grid solar system and how you can use it wisely.

This type of setup requires planning if you want to go off the grid. Installing solar panels is only the first step. You also must safeguard your system from things like reverse currents to keep the juice flowing to your home.

They say that those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Nothing could be truer when discussing an off-grid solar system

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In a big first step for Africa, the utility looks to procure 360 megawatts/1,440 megawatt-hours of storage capacity by 2021.
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.

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.

The planned battery solicitation follows a 2010 loan agreement with the World Bank and other lenders for the development of a 100-megawatt concentrated solar power plant, Kiwano, with energy storage.

When this project failed to materialize, Eskom began looking into other ways to fulfill the loan agreement, said Moyo. The utility put forward a proposal to use distributed battery storage in 2017.

Frederic Verdol, World Bank Group senior power engineer, said the battery tender was also a first for the bank. “Eskom wanted to be proactive,” he said. “This was a key thing for us because it’s in line with the original objectives of the project.”

The scope of the technology-agnostic procurement will include battery operations and maintenance and physical security such as access control and alarm systems.

For the first phase of procurement, Eskom has developed its own battery energy storage system specification and taken care of site selection, environmental approvals, land acquisition and National Energy Regulator licensing, Moyo said.

“We have also done some concept design,” he stated.

The winning bidder will be expected to verify Eskom’s technical studies and provide detailed designs before implementing the battery plant, said Moyo. Eskom has identified eight potential sites for the first phase of procurement, subject to due diligence.

Site selection for the second phase of procurement is underway, with fewer than 10 sites now under consideration, Moyo revealed.

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