Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the revelations that came to light during Eskom's centenary events, including warnings by the Eskom management of 1997 that the country was facing an electricity supply shortfall and that the debt owed to Eskom by municipalities was already becoming a significant challenge. He also talks about how loadshedding and [...]

Rich nations have an obligation to fund South Africa’s development of green hydrogen as part of a global effort to decarbonise, according to the Presidency’s infrastructure chief. The most industrialized nation on the continent that depends on coal to generate 80% of its electricity has plans to attract as much as $250-billion into green hydrogen, [...]

Solar park operator and owner AEP Energy will be advancing its global expansion plans at this year’s Africa Energy Indaba (AEI) by showcasing its unique mobile solar container, the MooV Solar. The MooV Solar container boasts a capacity of between 90 kW and 150 kW, depending on the end-user’s requirements, and is fully mobile, making [...]

South Africa should prioritise its decarbonisation strategy, as it has a carbon intensity much higher than most countries, and $1.5-billion of exports to the European Union (EU) are at risk in the short term. That figure is likely to increase when more products are covered under the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), said policy development [...]

The electricity shortages in South Africa, which have resulted in continuous loadshedding, are severely affecting people and businesses and, consequently, the economy and employment, specialists from law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH) noted during a briefing on March 2. They stressed that any directives issued by ministers during the state of disaster – declared to find [...]

Calculations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were that, in Africa, some 600-million people and 10-million small businesses lacked a dependable electricity supply. Nor did connection to a national grid guarantee a reliable supply of energy. The World Bank has reported that nearly 80% of the continent’s businesses suffer from power cuts. The continent [...]

Global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased by less than 1% in 2022, according to new analysis published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The ‘CO2 Emissions in 2022’ report, which is the first in a new series called the ‘Global Energy Transitions Stocktake’, shows that emissions grew by 0.9%, or 321-million tonnes, reaching a [...]

Mozambique’s ability to keep servicing its rising debt pile depends on the resumption of TotalEnergies SE’s $20-billion liquefied natural gas project, according to S&P Global Ratings. The project, once touted as Africa’s biggest private investment, stalled in 2021 following terror attacks by Islamic State-linked rebels in Mozambique’s northeast. Progress in containing the violence has led [...]

Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining and marketing company Implats benefitted from strong demand for its primary products in the half-year to December 31, amid a robust rand PGMs pricing environment, which mitigated the financial impact of broad-based inflationary pressures, the JSE-listed company said on Thursday. The company has allocated R4.3-billion over the next five years to [...]

Rail and mobility solutions company Alstom supported more than 9 000 jobs and injected R3.9-billion into South Africa as it continues to grow its local presence. These were the findings of a report it released in collaboration with assurance, strategy and tax services consultancy Ernst & Young (EY) capturing the company’s socioeconomic contributions from April 2021 [...]

The three-phase renewable energy rollout of Harmony Gold is not only driving decarbonisation but the reduction in electricity costs has the potential also to extend the mine life through a triple-win outcome. On the productivity front, strides are being made under the S300 business improvement platform, which involves each of the company’s conventional underground crews [...]

The reform-related conditions outlined by the National Treasury as part of a R254-billion Eskom debt-relief package – including the concessioning of coal power stations to the private sector and allowing for private sector participation in the building and operation of grid infrastructure – “make sense” and are necessary both in the context of the just [...]