A new report from Eskom points to the potential of new energy projects soon needing to consider locations outside of the Northern Cape. By Jan Fourie.
Browsing: Energy and sustainability
South Africa faces a record year for power outages after an explosion damaged one of Eskom’s newest coal-fired generation units.
Eskom has suspended several employees after an explosion at Unit 4 at the Medupi power station caused what the utility has described as “extensive damage” to the facility.
An explosion at the Unit 4 generator at the Medupi power station in Limpopo has knocked out an adjacent unit, Eskom said on Monday. It’s not yet clear if this will lead to load shedding in the coming week.
South Africa experienced 650 hours of load shedding in the first half of 2021 (15% of the time), shedding an estimated 963GWh of estimated energy, according to a new report from the CSIR.
Consumers and businesses will have to fork out an additional 91c for a litre of fuel as of Wednesday. Government announced that both grades of 95 and 93 octane will increase by this amount.
There are widespread doubts that renewable energy projects can happen fast enough to replace coal. So a controversial fossil fuel remains part of the planned energy mix: natural gas.
Eskom has reached “commercial operation status” of its final generation unit at Medupi, one of the world’s largest coal-fired power stations – and likely one of the last of its size to be built.
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has laid out a funding plan to help the company, which generates the bulk of South Africa’s power from coal, transition away from the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
A powerful cold front that swept across South Africa overnight, coupled with a loss of generation capacity, means Eskom will implement load shedding from 4pm to 9pm on Thursday.