Hot Water

No-cost

• Use less hot water – Shower instead of bathing, Do not let the hot water run unnecessarily, use cold water to wash your hands instead.
• Turn your geyser down to 60°C. Turning your geyser down from 70˚C to 60˚C will see a 5% reduction in your hot water electricity bill. In some cases, 55°C is a good option (but not below that for health risk reasons)
• Switch off your geyser when you go away for a few days or more and during peak hours.

Low-cost

• Insulate your water pipes and wrap your geyser in a geyser blanket.
• Install a geyser timer.
• Switch to a low-flow, energy and water efficient aerated showerhead
• Fix leaking hot water taps.

Lighting

No-cost

• Turn off the lights if you leave a room for more than five minutes.
• Maximise sunlight. Open the curtains in the morning rather than turning on lights.

low-cost

• Replace traditional incandescent light bulbs with Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
• Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) remain a somewhat more affordable way to save,
• Use solar powered lights in your garden

Appliances

No-Cost

• Switch off all unused appliances at the wall.
• Only use your washing machine once a full load of dirty laundry has accumulated
• Use cold-water or lower heat settings as often as possible.
• Skip the pre-wash cycle for clothes that aren’t particularly dirty
• Never overload your automatic washing machine
• When using a kettle, boil only as much water as you need

Low-Cost

• Invest in a front-loading washing machine instead of a top loader. It uses less water and costs less to operate
• Have the seals in your fridge replaced to keep the cold air in
• Choose a dishwasher model with a no-heat air-drying feature to save even more electricity, if you can’t use a cloth to dry the dishes or let them drip-dry instead.

The post Save on Electricity This Month appeared first on Powertime.

So if you’re not already aware of this new energy plan, let’s unpack it a little bit. The policy includes some surprising interventions. Some of these notable interventions include the following:

Coal Dependence

Currently, in terms of the total energy generation in South Africa, coal accounts for 77% of that across all it’s coal plants. According to the IRP, the projection is that by the year 2030, this percentage would have been reduced to somewhere in the region of 60% of all energy production in the country. So still heavily dependent on coal fired plants which environmentalist are especially not pleased about.

Renewable Energy?

Despite coal still playing a significant role in energy generation, there is space for a shift towards renewables. According to the IRP, government expects to hike the contribution made to the grid by wind generated energy infrastructures. In the initial draft version of the IRP, released last year, wind generated energy was only supposed to deliver 13% of SA’s electricity by 2030– this has now been increased to more than 18%.

By 2030, solar will supply 7% of electricity. Hydro plants will contribute 8%, nuclear 4.5% and the rest from gas and diesel.

New Coal Plants

The newly released IRP indicates that government notes a business case for the construction of modular and smaller power plants producing between 300mw and 600mw. Particularly in the face of some of the current fleet of power plants being decommissioned in the coming years. Nuclear is very expensive at commissioning and at decommissioning, but when it is operational it is “most reliable and cost effective,” Mantashe told journalists on Friday.

Nuclear reactors planned?

Montalto said that new nuclear capacity does not come onstream before 2030, but discussion of work to start on scoping new nuclear is in the plan for coming on grid beyond 2030.

The IRP argued that smaller nuclear plants will be easier managed investments when compared to large-scale projects. But government acknowledges that these could take more than 10 years to construct, and no additional nuclear power is set to come online before 2030.

The post Unpacking IRP2019 appeared first on Powertime.

This is the case at the time of writing but there still remains the strong possibility that the stage level will be upgraded to stage two, and this could even be a possibility today and definitely going into the weekend. This despite Eskom CEO, Jabu Mabuza saying that load-shedding should cease by this weekend. The current load-shedding implementation has been blamed on boiler leaks at 6 different power generating units, although some of these units are now online. Mabuza went further on to stress the fact that some the current power generation fleet has an average age of 36 years.

Another factor that contributed to the rolling black out, was the failure of the conveyor belt feeding coal from Exxaro’s Grootegeluk mine to the Medupi power station in Lephalale, Limpopo. The conveyor belt, which transports an average of 4000 tons of coal to the Medupi plant, per hour, reportedly broke down on Saturday. Mabuza mentioned in the presser, that a huge contingent of expertise has been dispatched to the area and he expects the machinery to be up and running by next week, Wednesday.  Whether load-shedding will stay away this weekend or not, remains to be seen then..

Currently, coal is being transported to the Medupi powerplant by means of bulldozers. Eskom, also has had to make use of open cycle gas turbines to cater for the current electricity shortfall. The issue with this, and it was an issue back in March as well, is that diesel stocks are incredibly expensive and current stocks are running low. This also contributes to the load-shedding situation. Mabuza said that Eskom is using much less diesel that it has in the past. In the past financial year, Eskom burnt diesel worth R6bn to keep the lights on in South Africa – in  the year to date, it only used R500m.

Please ensure that you check your schedule to see how you are affected and remember to protect your appliances from power surge by switching them off at the wall sockets before load-shedding commences.

The post Stage 1 load-shedding current , Stage 2 possibility appeared first on Powertime.

The energy availability of Eskom’s generation plants is supposed to be as high as 80%, but was last month as low as 69%, an Eskom board member warned recently.

We last saw loadshedding in March this year, after a cyclone in Mozambique affected power imports from the affected country. Eskom also didn’t have enough diesel to power its open cycle gas turbines and this resulted in widespread load-shedding.

“Most of our power stations are in need of maintenance to improve reliability… we do our best to strike the right balance between plant maintenance and keeping the lights on,” said Eskom chairperson and acting CEO Jabu Mabuza.

Headquarters of Eskom, Megawatt park, north of Johannesburg. Eskom generates approximately 95% of the electricity used in South Africa and approximately 45% of the electricity used in Africa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has bentioned that it has a plan to deal with Eskom’s R450bn debt and the new deal to have Eskom split into three seperate units, name;y generation, transmission and distribution, is set to be discussed in cabinet today, with the view to find a swift resolution into how this deal is to be implemented. The economy has taken a hit recently and severe load-shedding, while not completely avoidable, needs to be manage to reduce it’s effect on the economy.

The post Eskom To Implement Stage 2 load-shedding appeared first on Powertime.

Under former state president Jacob Zuma’s administration, the then minister of energy tried to push through a nuclear energy deal with Russian energy company, Rostom, which, had it succeeded, would have effectively bankrupted the country’s coffers. Civil society organisations challenged the deal in court and won, and it was finally shelved when Cyril Ramaphosa became president.

To this end, Mantashe commented, “The fact that we suspected corruption doesn’t mean that nuclear is irrelevant for the country in 2019.” South Africa still remains the only country on the African continent with a commercial nuclear power plant. The Koeberg nuclear power plant, which houses two nuclear reactors, generates 5% of South Africa’s electricity productions.

On the country’s future power plans, Mantashe emphasized the importance of undoing the tensions between renewable energy and coal in securing energy solutions that are required to meet demands. With regards to this, he explained that there are no full commitment by the government to move towards nuclear at this stage, but rather a commitment to explore all energy options.

We all hope this vision is expedited in a move to stabilize the country’s power grid.

The post Nuclear still a Possibility appeared first on Powertime.

The South African government has set this day aside for all South Africans to celebrate our rich heritage. Across all races, languages, region and religion, there is one common heritage we all love and share. It goes by various names, Chesa Nyama, Braai and Ukosa to name a few and although the approach differs there’s one constant; when we have something to celebrate, we all unite together behind a fire and prepare amazing feasts.

And that, in a nutshell is what Heritage day or National Braai day is all about. Below we share some thoughts of how this could save you some units on your electricity bill

Cook outdoors

But more than this, try and cook everything on the fire. You never know what you could learn when you’re doing this, and you would also be preparing your self for an instance where you would be forced to. Things you could cook over the fire besides meat include boiling potatoes and baking breads, even pizza etc.

Keep your food warm

There shouldn’t be a need to use the microwave to warm food. There’s cost effective ways this could be done. Build a separate station in close to proximity to dying coal embers that would keep your food warm. Make sure to put it in a fireproof container though. 

Keep yourself warm

You can use fires and coal embers in a control way to keep warm, if you decide to braai later this evening. Whether indoors (fireplace) or outdoors make sure you stock up on plenty of wood this heritage day.

With that said, we wish you a most enjoyable Heritage day with your friends and family and hope that you enjoy the memories and special moments that will be shared and long remembered!

The post National Heritage-Braai Day appeared first on Powertime.

She does go on to explain why a positive economic outlook would have a negative impact on Eskom and it’s operations. It may seem like a very outlandish or absurd comment, but the explanation makes logical sense if you think it through. The main logical reason for this is that, the better the economy performs, the greater the demand becomes for energy.

This becomes an issue especially because energy availability in South Africa is about 11% below what it should be, currently sitting at 69%, a figure that should be sitting around 80%. This sentiment was echoed by Independent Energy thought leader CEO Mike Rossouw, who said the problems at Eskom can be attributed to completely wrong pricing policy.

Sharing his thoughts on this, he goes on to say that in the past, the current policy could be seen as suitable due to a smaller scale and less investment in new plants. However, presently Eskom can not generate the revenue needed to support investment into the new plants it is building, neither to support the scale of it’s operations.

He lamented that the focus on fixing Eskom was on addressing the symptoms, rather than the root cause of pricing policy.

The post Positive GDP, the catalyst for Eskom Load-shedding? appeared first on Powertime.

What are the facts?

So what exactly causes global warming? This occurs as a result of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases causes the Earth to warm. According an article by NASA, the average surface temperature has risen 0.9 degrees celsius since the late 19th century – 2016 being the warmest year ever recorded. As a result, we are seeing a loss of ice mass, Greenland having lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice, Antartica 119 billion tons, per year between 1993 and 2016. Snow cover in the northern hemisphere has decreased over the past 5 decades, and are melting earlier. Another very scary phenomenon are the global rise in sea level, by 8 inches, with the rate accelerating in the last two decades with the number of recorded high temperature events increasing.

(Pic: courtesy of NASA)

This has seen a effort from governments all over the world to collaborate and come up with progressive regulations and plans to reduce emissions in a bid to claw back the damage that’s being down to earth’s atmosphere.

The post Current state of Climate Change appeared first on Powertime.

Unlike a traditional solar photovoltaic (PV) system, the Karoshoek facility is based on concentrated solar plant (CSP) technology, which requires no coal or any other excess waste products. How it works is, several parabolic mirrors will focus the heat and energy from the sun, into a huge collector which holds thermal fluid. This thermal fluid, as with traditional coal stations, powers a turbine using this heat, which it is able to retain for several hours. Meaning that this plant is able to generate electricity even when the sun goes down.

There has been increasingly loud and persistent calls for the government to seriously start looking into renewable energy, and it would appear as though the call is being headed. Through the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, the government aims at killing two birds with one stone, that is, making sure that we avoid load-shedding and more importantly, creating job employment opportunities and economic growth.

The post New Solar Plant To Provide Energy to 100 000 Households appeared first on Powertime.

SA makes headway in being recognized as the greenest moving country.

The decision by South Africa to take on a more active role in creating an environmentally sustainable society is no surprise as studies have consistently shown that South Africa is among the largest carbon emitters in the world, due to the long-standing and heavy reliance on coal-powered electricity. These statistics are unique for a developing country.

Cape times Summary

As a result, our renewable energy sector has seen a massive boost. The dip in renewable electricity costs coupled with the growth of independent producers and the increased role of institutional investors has created the continents largest renewable market in terms of asset finance for utility-scale projects.

Despite coal power still providing three-quarters of South Africa’s energy, government aims to increase the country’s renewable capacity to 17.8GW by 2030.

The SA Wind Energy Association will hold South Africa’s largest wind conference, Windaba, next month. This year’s theme is “Towards 100 percent renewables”. The conference will highlight the positive developments in the wind energy sector as the cost of wind power has gradually decreased to 40% that of the cost of coal powered energy produced from Eskom’s new coal powered station, Medupi.

Another booming renewable sector is solar photovoltaic energy. These panels are being utilized on a mass scale, from office blocks to shopping centers.

Wind and solar energy technologies are capable of feeding into the national grid and will thus relieve the current energy demand.

Renewable energy projects will be deployed at various pilot sites, including the Robben Island Museum, the Skukuza and Lower Sabie rest camps in the Kruger National Park, the Karoo Desert, the Hantam and the Free State National Botanical Gardens to name a few.

The pathway leading to the lower Sabie rest camps in the Kruger Park

These are just a few examples of where renewable energy is being and will be implemented in South Africa. As the dependence on coal becomes increasingly unreliable, a combination of measures including, government initiatives, independent power producers, foreign investment and guidance have contributed to SA being one of the world’s fastest growing green economies.

Reference:

Newspaper article: Cape Times Business Report: “SA going green fastest” by Lisa Isaacs (Wednesday 28 September 2016)

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