Sebenza substation, the city of Johannesburg’s biggest electrical project in a decade, was officially opened by the city’s mayor, Herman Mashaba, recently. In his speech, Mashaba said he was proud to announce that this substation, which will strengthen City Power’s distribution network had been built within budget and on time. This new substation, which is […]
Small-scale power generation plants driven by hydrocarbon sources and biomass are still likely to play a valuable part in rolling out electricity in regions of Africa unserved by grid power and where renewable resources are insufficient to sustain a reliable energy supply. The lack of a secure baseload energy supply in certain areas can be […]
Eskom’s road to sustainability will be long, hard and painful. The power utility is facing severe challenges financially and operationally. The risk of load shedding in the coming months remains fairly high; the cost of keeping the lights on will further impact financial performance; and tough decisions are necessary to achieve full recovery. That’s the […]
Universal electrification becoming a reality Kenya’s Lake Turkana Wind Farm is making the promise of nationwide access to electricity a reality. Electrification rates have reportedly increased from 28% in 2013 to 60% in 2017. The rate is expected to reach 80% by 2020. Lake Turkana Wind Farm is the biggest in Africa, with a generating […]
Permanent magnets have been used to provide the magnetic field in small to medium sized generators for many years. The use of these in large renewable energy (RE)generators may offer performance advantages for future utility-scale generators. Large (MW sized) permanent magnet generators (PMGs) are mainly found in the wind turbine sector today, but are not confined to this […]
IHI Corporation tested its 1 kW ammonia-fueled solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) in Japan; Project Alkammonia concluded its work on cracked-ammonia-fed alkaline fuel cells (AFC) in the EU; the University of Delaware’s project for low-temperature direct ammonia fuel cells (DAFC) continues with funding from the US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E and, in Israel, GenCell launched […]
SGB-SMIT, a European transformer specialist and Power Matla, a locally owned black empowered company with investments mainly within the renewable energy, ICT, mining and power utilities markets, launched their new company SGB-SMIT Power Matla recently. The new company, originally Powertech Transformers (PTT), will continue to operate out of its two factories in Pretoria and Cape Town. The […]
The use of natural ester dielectric fluid instead of mineral oil in power transformers offers many advantages and the announcement that a local factory is to be set up to produce this fluid is a very important development in South Africa’s energy sector. Wilec, a division of Actom, currently imports natural ester dielectric fluid for […]
South Africa’s electricity sector is undergoing a multifaceted transformation brought about by energy security concerns, rising electricity prices, the emergence of renewable energy technologies and the introduction of independent power producers. This article considers the fundamental elements which characterise the German and South African energy markets, highlights the challenges which are prevalent in the energy […]
Cigre Study Committee (SC) C4 deals with power system technical performance. SC C4 facilitates and promotes the progress of engineering and the international exchange of information and knowledge in the field of system technical performance. The organisation seeks to add value to this information and knowledge by means of synthesizing state-of-the-art practices and developing recommendations. […]
