Electrical energy storage systems (ESS) are becoming increasingly important in both the renewable energy and the smart grid sectors, as more operators are realising that without ESS it will be difficult to progress forward. Although it was regarded in the past as too expensive, storage is now seen to be an essential economic solution […]
South African natural gas reserves could provide the country with as much as 15 GW of electricity, says Kishan Pillay, the director for upstream and midstream oil and gas at the Department of Trade and Industry. Speaking at the SANEA Action for Energy event in Sandton on 20 February 2015, Pillay said that natural gas […]
The domestic use of energy (DUE) conference will take place from 30 March 2015 to 1 April 2015 at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town. Attendance at the conference qualifies for continuous professional development (CPD) points with ECSA for professional registration. The conference will host a workshop on mandatory minimum efficiency […]
The government is in the process of finalising, and will soon introduce, regulations which will introduce mandatory minimum energy efficiency performance standards (MEPS) and appliance labelling, both for domestic appliances. The standards and labelling project is aimed at reducing the South African household energy demand. Twelve household appliances have been selected based on their […]
In a speech delivered at the recent State of the Nation Address debate, Lynne Brown, the minister of public enterprises, said that Eskom has stopped its practice of keeping the lights on at the cost of increased wear and tear on equipment at its power stations, and is following its preventative maintenance schedules “to […]
South Africa does not have a shortage of generation capacity, says the Department of Energy, but a shortage of available generation capacity. Delivering the keynote address on behalf of the minister of energy at the Africa Energy Indaba in Sandton on 17 February 2015, Dr. Wolsey Barnard, the department’s acting director general, said that […]
Gauteng is to use renewable energy sources to help the province to reduce its electricity demand and carbon footprint. Opening the Africa Energy Indaba in Sandton on 17 February 2015, the MEC of Gauteng’s department of infrastructure development, Nandi Mayathule-Khoza, said that the province will focus on recovering landfill gas as an energy source, […]
The European offshore wind industry saw new capacity installations decline by 84 MW (5,34%) in 2014 as the sector stabilised following record figures the previous year. In 2014, 408 new offshore turbines were fully grid connected, adding 1483 MW to the European system. The total installed capacity for Europe now stands at 8045 MW […]
The 52,5 MW Challicum Hills Wind Farm in Australia consists of 35 1,5 MW wind turbines and is connected to the national grid at 66 kV. Four individual 2,1 Mvar Elspec Equaliser-w real time, transient free, reactive power correction systems have been installed for central power correction. The systems are connected to the wind […]
The buzzwords at this year’s SPS IPC Drives Exhibition in Germany were “energy” and “data”. Economic pressures, environmental consciousness and regulations have influenced product and service designs, and shifted the focus to technology optimisation. Automation trade fairs and conferences are good indicators of shifting trends in the market, and the SPS IPC Drives Exhibition […]
