Vermeer Equipment Suppliers South Africa was established in 2004 and services and supports the Sub-Saharan Africa region. We provide expert sales and service to customers who have chosen to use our equipment, and strive for higher levels of production and profitability. Vermeer Equipment Suppliers has expertly trained staff in the parts, service and sales and support categories. Our stocked warehouse ensures a high level of parts availability, backed up by a number of regional offices throughout the world. The sales team provides feasible and cost-effective solutions, while being backed by a fully equipped and mobile service centre.

Designed to deal with soil efficiently, right-sized and powered for today’s jobsites, Vermeer trenchers are available with a range of attachments from standard center mount to offset with conveyor, helping you to exceed jobsite expectations every time.

Our RTX models feature the quad-track system for work in a wider range of weather and ground conditions. When we introduced quad tracks, we affirmed our commitment to making once unthinkable productivity rates possible. Today, we continue our commitment to helping you make significant strides forward in your productivity.

Designed to deal with soil efficiently, right-sized and powered for today’s jobsites, Vermeer Solar Pile Drivers and a Range of Equipment for Cable Trenching are available with a range of attachments from standard center mount to offset with conveyor, helping you to exceed jobsite expectations every time.

Our RTX models feature the quad-track system for work in a wider range of weather and ground conditions. When we introduced quad tracks, we affirmed our commitment to making once unthinkable productivity rates possible. Today, we continue our commitment to helping you make significant strides forward in your productivity.
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​CONTACT US
+27 (0) 11 608 0893
info@vermeersouthafrica.com              www.vermeersouthafrica.com/
Stand 5596, Proton Industrial Park (Proton Street), Chloorkop Ext. 65, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.

Your nationwide network of solar component suppliers and solar electric system specialists.
Turnkey solutions based on technical expertise and outstanding service.

​We currently have 33 independent branches countrywide and recently expanded into the international market with branches in Madagascar, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

ALLSOLAR prides itself on providing effective and affordable solutions subject to client specific requirements. We offer innovative, engineered energy solutions for domestic, agricultural, commercial and industrial applications. Since continual technical competence is key to sustainability within the RE industry, our national combination of resources and experience ensures great work by trusted people and unsurpassed technical support. In house developed PV design software guarantees professional system design.

Renewable energy is our speciality. It is all we do!
ALLSOLAR branches are fully endorsed by SAAEA and SAPVIA.
Our strong dealer network ensures extremely competitive prices.
We are a leading supplier of brand name renewable energy products.
ALLSOLAR has a nationwide reputation, the right teams, technical knowhow and understanding of the future of energy.
With independent ALLSOLAR branches nationwide, access to collective technical knowledge, experience and support is unsurpassed.
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Bett Company was founded in 2013 and has since then a proven track record of experience, dedication and professional service in Namaqualand and Northern parts of the Western Cape with occasional deliveries in other parts of the Western Cape.

The driving force behind our success is fired by many years of experience, engineering knowledge, including professional certification and related qualifications to extend the arms of the company.

With many years of experience in the electrical, electronic, refrigeration, solar, and Medium Voltage fields boost the efficiency of the company to execute our projects. We also have extensive experience in solar grid-tie, hybrid, and island systems, as well as applying solar systems for supply to pumping systems.

Our staff is competent, well-trained, innovative, self-motivated, responsible, and client-orientated individuals who work in self-directed teams to execute our projects. The staff consists of:
• ECSA Registered Electrical Engineer (Pr.Cert.Eng [Pr.Dipl.Ing])
• ECSA Registered Electrical Technologist (BTech: Electrical)
• 3 x Qualified Electricians (3 phase)
• 1 x Mechanical Fitter
• 4 x Semi-skilled electricians
• 4 x Electrical Operatives
• 5 x General Assistants
• 4 x Administrative personnel
We own a fleet of 7 LDV’s to provide a service to our clients and for specialised equipment we have hire agreements with local providers. We presently occupied a 700m² building, in which our offices and workshop are located in with a 3 500m² yard area to provide sufficient space to execute our projects.

South Africa’s environment department said on Thursday that it had refused applications by Karpowership for environmental authorisations for three gas-to-power projects.

In March, the government selected three Karpowership projects among preferred bidders in an emergency power tender.

A company that lost out subsequently challenged the tender results in court, and environmental activists have expressed opposition to the Karpowership projects.

South Africans should understand that the decision … will extend load shedding for years to come
“The competent authority in the department has decided, after due consideration of all relevant information … to refuse the applications for the environmental authorisations,” the environment department said in a statement.

Karpowership has blamed what it called a “misinformation campaign funded by special interests” for the department’s decision to block the project. It said the “campaign” runs counter to the department’s “strategic plan to end load shedding and address South Africa’s economic and energy crisis”.

Will appeal
“Karpowership SA, with its three projects, will provide 800 000 South African homes with cleaner, reliable, and affordable power, and South Africans should understand that the decision on behalf of the (department) threatens the delivery of this power and will extend load shedding for years to come.

“Karpowership SA conducted a robust public participation process, met all South Africa’s stringent environmental requirements, and is confident that it will win the appeal against this decision.”  — Reported by Alexander Winning, (c) 2021 Reuters with additional reporting (c) 2021 NewsCentral Media

The share of renewable energy that achieved lower costs than the most competitive fossil fuel option doubled in 2020, a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows. 162 GW (62%) of total renewable power generation added last year had lower costs than the cheapest new fossil fuel option.
Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020 shows that costs for renewable technologies continued to fall significantly year-on-year. Concentrating solar power (CSP) fell by 16%, onshore wind by 13%, offshore wind by 9% and solar PV by 7%. With costs at low levels, renewables increasingly undercut existing coal’s operational costs too. Low-cost renewables give developed and developing countries a strong business case to power past coal in pursuit of a net zero economy. Just 2020’s new renewable project additions will save emerging economies up to US$156-billion over their lifespan.

Read the report here

“Today, renewables are the cheapest source of power,” said IRENA’s Director-General Francesco La Camera. “Renewables present countries tied to coal with an economically attractive phase-out agenda that ensures they meet growing energy demand, while saving costs, adding jobs, boosting growth and meeting climate ambition. I am encouraged that more and more countries opt to power their economies with renewables and follow IRENA’s pathway to reach net zero emissions by 2050.”

Read more.......

Imagine a prosperous future without load shedding where enough energy is supplied by an affordable energy system that catalyses a large-scale industrialisation programme. A system that injects new life and capital into South Africa’s struggling rural towns. It’s easy if we try.
By Mark Swilling, Nthabiseng Mohlakoana, Merin Jacob, Ndamulelo Mararakanye, Bernard Bekker and HJ Vermeulen
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The publication of the list of preferred bidders for the Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), the subsequent opening of Bid Window 5 by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the recent presidential announcement about the new 100MW limit for self-generated licence-exempt renewables has focused attention on the accelerated construction of renewable energy generation in South Africa.

This brings the procurement of renewable energy from Bid Window 1 to Bid Window 5 to a total of 9GW, with a further potential procurement of 1.8GW from the RMIPPPP. Although this may not be as much as civil society groups, industry associations, research organisations and even Eskom may have wanted, the total of 10.8GW renewable energy, ie 24% of capacity currently installed in South Africa, does suggest that South Africa may well be catching up with the rest of the world that is transitioning fast into a renewables-based energy future.

The establishment of the Presidential Climate Change Coordinating Commission (P4C), with a clear mandate inherited from the National Planning Commission’s Just Transition Scenarios, will inevitably lead to the government confirming the globally accepted “Net Zero by 2050” target that was referred to in the Low Emissions Development Strategy approved by the Cabinet in September 2020. The Net Zero target refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This does not mean no carbon emissions, it means that the total output of emissions and total capture of emissions in carbon sinks should equal zero.

It’s an ambition that South Africa’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) being prepared for COP26 later this year will need to fully embrace. The strongest commitment statement to date to the energy transition comes from the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC): “What used to be a choice is now mandatory. Those countries not adapting to a green transition will find themselves behind and excluded.”

The above developments, together with the recent announcement by the president that the cap on licence-exempt self-generation will be lifted from 1MW to 100MW that could unlock as much as 5GW of additional capacity in the near future, must undoubtedly be celebrated by all stakeholders.

According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) an ambitious commitment to building 5GW of renewable energy per annum for decades is urgently required — this equates to the generating capacity of two-and-a-half Koeberg nuclear power stations. This is needed to replace South Africa’s ageing coal-fired power stations and could unlock nearly R500-billion worth of investment over the next 10 years, creating 50,000 jobs per annum in construction and operation of wind and solar plants.

This, in turn, would trigger an upstream industrialisation programme that will catalyse the re-industrialisation of the South African economy that will rapidly drive down unemployment levels. All good news. Expanding and decarbonising the generation capacity through investment in renewable energy, however, represents only one aspect of the transition to a stable and sustainable energy scenario.

Once generated, electricity must be transmitted from distributed generation sites to load centres via the electricity grid. The existing grid, however, is unevenly developed — it is strong in the northeast where the coal deposits are, and weak in the southwest where the best wind and solar resources are located. Is the national grid, therefore, fit for future purpose?

National demand for electricity by businesses and households is variable, and it changes according to summer and winter seasons. While weather-dependent wind farms at two different locations might generate the same amount of energy per year, the times during which they dispatch energy onto the grid may differ drastically. One wind farm might generate power when the grid needs it (eg during the morning and evening peak times in winter), another in a different region may generate power at different times. This raises a crucial question: how well will the new weather-dependent renewable energy generators synchronise with the demand patterns of the end users (households and businesses) across different seasons?

Investments in renewable energy will unlock economic growth, especially in the regions where the plants and grid infrastructure are sited. However, will these benefits be optimally and equitably distributed across the South African landscape? Communities around wind and solar farms are well positioned to benefit developmentally from these projects. But this depends on the capabilities of local governments, local businesses and civil society to take advantage of new inward investment flows. This has implications for the location of projects. It would not be desirable, for example, to put projects into locations where there are high levels of corruption and mismanagement.

Read more..........

Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) director-general Advocate Thabo Mokoena reports that government intends using the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan (SAREM), which is currently being drafted, to position the country as a “globally significant” producer of inputs used in renewable-energy plants.

In a keynote address to the virtual Enlit Africa conference on Tuesday, Mokoena said the SAREM would help “coordinate the renewable-energy requirements” to support such an industrialisation drive and to boost manufacturing employment.

The DMRE, together with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, was currently prioritising the establishment of a multi stakeholder SAREM executive oversight committee, which would guide and champion industrialisation across renewables value chains.

Speaking during a recent webinar hosted to coincide with the six-month countdown to the upcoming COP26 climate talks, to be held in Scotland in November, Green Cape’s Francis Jackson said that, once convened, the committee would be able to confirm the target timeline for finalising of the plan and its adoption.

He indicated that, historically, the yearly South Africa Investment Conference had been an opportunity for masterplans to be announced, but stressed that this did not preclude prior adoption should the plan be endorsed ahead of the conference, scheduled for early November.

“The present focus is the establishment of the executive oversight committee as well as the research and consultation phase.

“Inputs from the research and consultations are contributing to an emerging set of opportunities, barriers and bottlenecks and trade-offs.

“These require the executive oversight committee’s engagement to take to the next level of prioritising levers to unlock them,” Jackson told Engineering News separately.

A matrix of value-chain elements was being considered, with priority being given to those primary materials, components and subcomponents used in the manufacture and assembly of the renewables technologies outlined in the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 (IRP2019), including solar photovoltaic (PV), wind and battery storage.

“Care is being taken to ensure that the perspectives of global value-chain players eyeing the market for investment in local production capacity, as well as incumbent local manufacturers’ perspectives, are represented in the problem-solving.”

MANUFACTURING OPPORTUNITY

Value-chain elements have not yet been “strategically prioritised”, but the objective is to outline a rational sequencing of support that harnesses “the low-hanging fruit that catalyse related value-chain elements”.

“For example, wind turbine towers and blades are obvious primary component opportunities, should procurement and project pipeline certainty be clear,” Jackson outlines, adding that the integration of local components in nacelle assembly could grow over time.

Read more.......

WIDELY regarded as the pioneers of using lithium ion batteries in materials handling lift trucks, Jungheinrich, have overcome the problems associated with using Li-ion powered lift trucks in cold stores, at temperatures of -25⁰C and South Africa can expect this state of the art technology to arrive in Q4 2021.

The company began the introduction of li-ion batteries across its product range in 2010 amid much derision from competitors wedded to lead acid batteries. The much improved performance and advantages of li-ion powered machines soon had competitors developing their own lithium-ion powered machines, or retrofitting their own units with outsourced li-ion batteries

While all types of batteries show performance declines in cold temperature situations, Li-ion batteries capacity only declines by 10% at 0⁰C compared with 50% for the lead acid equivalent. Furthermore, lower temperatures experienced in typical cold stores can cause the electrolyte in lead acid batteries to freeze and crack the battery casing in prolonged usage in cold store environment.

The advantages of li-ion over lead acid batteries in lift truck applications, is well documented and includes:

Lower mass
Greater energy density provides extended shift times
Lower charging times – typically 80 minutes from almost flat – full
No electrolyte therefore no leakage problems, no dangerous gassing or freezing.
Longer working life – Jungheinrich guarantee its batteries for five years suggesting replacement only after eight. edit.

These advantages contribute to increased productivity, factory space saving as no battery bays are required as battery swapping is obsolete – li-ion powered trucks can complete up to three shifts with only 15 minutes charge intervals , from anywhere in the plant. In sub-zero conditions Jungheinrich’s two shifts one charge battery operated forklift is ideal for longer shift hours. Flexible charging options are the key to productive cold store operations, whether changing takes place inside an ambient environment or outside.

This means that all trucks in this range whether manual, semi-automatic or fully automatic machines can perform successfully in low temperatures, in all racking configurations.

Jungheinrich engineers have been perfecting the technology since its inception and have overcome low temperature battery issues allowing its new EKX range of VNA (very narrow aisle) machines to perform at temperatures as low as -28⁰C – which covers virtually all cold store applications.

Low temperature operation machines include specially designed features including special steel construction, anti-stick-slip additives, low viscosity oils and purpose designed pumps, tanks and hydraulic equipment to cater for the environment. Operators are not forgotten either with cabin heaters and windscreen and window de-misters.

Compared with conventional reach trucks the EKX machines are much narrower between 1 750mm and 2 100mm compared to 3m for a reach truck allowing greater storage density especially if specified with a 12,5m Stack and Retrieval capability

Read more.......

We can help you link with funding for RE projects.
There are various finance solutions available for either home or commercial applications.

​SAAEA have partnered with international financiers for Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMEs) across Africa.
We aim to free up capital as well as reduce carbon emissions. Our uniquely innovative product's reduces costs, provides liquidity and generates maximum long term value. The models provides electricity at a lower tariff than the businesses existing tariff, generating immediate cash savings whilst only paying for power you use. Solar equipment, batteries and diesel generating backup also covered.

More info......

City of Joburg to issue a request for information for the construction of a 150MW solar plant, as well as 50 megawatts of rooftop solar panels

Africa’s financial capital, Johannesburg, has announced plans to meet 35% of its power needs from renewable energy sources, the municipality said in a presentation on Thursday. The City of Joburg will seek proposals for privately supplied renewable energy by August. Johannesburg is also gearing up to issue a request for information for the construction of a 150-megawatt solar plant, as well as 50 megawatts of rooftop solar panels.

The City of Joburg also plans to seek information for the installation of a 100 megawatts battery energy storage system (BESS).

South Africa’s state owned utility Eskom which supplies 95% of the country’s power needs has been battling to supply power to South African cities consistently. With persistent power blackouts known in South Africa as load shedding predicted to last for the next 5 years, many municipalities are now looking for alternative sources of power to plug the electricity supply gap. 

“We would need to go out to the market to ask for independent power producers for an expression of interest to find out how many of them are able to come with their own capital,” said Paul Vermeulen, chief engineer for renewable energy at City Power.

City Power, the municipality’s power utility, says it will enter into long term power purchase agreements with IPPs for the purchase of renewable energy. ​

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Joburg to utilise SA’s power sector reforms
The South African government this year announced amendments to the country’s electricity regulations to allow municipalities to purchase power from sources other than Eskom, effectively breaking the utility’s monopoly of power supply in South Africa. Many municipalities in South Africa including the City of Joburg have announced plans to utilise the amendments to the regulations and develop own generation capacity as well as procure power directly from IPPs.

The government is also amending the Electricity Regulation Act to allow for self generation systems of up to 10MW to be exempted from licensing by the regulator NERSA. A study by local think tank, Meridian Economics, found that up to 5 000 MW of additional generation capacity could be unlocked in the near term if South Africa raises the threshold by to 50 MW.

South Africa is hoping its power sector reforms will kick start its economic recovery process from the COVID-19 devastation and bring in much needed foreign direct investment. The government is rolling out a series of new procurement initiatives for renewable energy with an estimated 6,8GW planned for procurement over the next year. South Africa’s previous bid windows for renewable energy attracted around US$20 billion in investment in less than a decade.

Source......