Energy efficiency and renewable energy resources
by Mike Cary, SAIEE president
 Over the past century, mankind has beneficiated natural resources to improve their standard of living. In the process, many non-renewable resources have become depleted. This has had the effect of increasing the cost of these increasingly scarce resources, incentivising people to look for alternatives, as well as investigating means to use the existing resources more productively... ( more)
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Interview with Donald McKechnie of Powertech IST
by Mike Rycroft, editor
 I started as a software engineer working at Koeberg and later got involved with software and hardware development projects through RTU and SCADA contracts with Eskom in partnership with the then Westinghouse Systems UK. This involved me working on and off in the UK with Westinghouse from 1992 - 1994 on the so-called Smart SCADA systems for Eskom Distribution... ( more) |
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Karoo shale gas development could boost GDP and create hundreds of thousands of jobs
by the late Tony Twine, Econometrix
Just 10% of the US EIA estimated 485 tcf shale resource could add R200-billion to GDP annually and create 700 000 sustainable jobs, as well as providing SA with a solution to its electricity supply and pricing challenges. Development of Karoo gas could ensure SA's energy security and significantly boost the economy... ( more) |
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Energize In-box: Our winning letter to the editor
My purpose here is not to defend a mythical character, but to call into question the lauding of that essentially parasitic activity known as rooftop PV. (" Occupy the rooftops!" Energize, March 2012, page 6)... ( more) |
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The Jacob Marley column: SOC it to them!
A certain large South African SOC in the electricity sector has recently been much in the news. What particularly struck me was that the news invariably mentioned money, but not once, if memory serves, customers. After all, customers pay the bills, and that usually involves money... ( more) |
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Wooden pole mystery solved by Gerrit Teunissen, City Power
The concrete "supports" are installed as an extreme measure to resist the continuous attempts of vandalism and theft of the pole transformer and LV cable to the customer. As the supply point in is a remote area and serves as a supply to a MTN site we had to try to secure it... ( more) |
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Cigré chairman's report
by Rob Stephen, Eskom
The Cigré Steering Committee, consisting of leading industrialists from USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Japan, China, Russia, South Africa, Germany, France, Spain, and the UK, will meet in South Africa from 24 - 27 April 2012. During the meeting a South Africa day will be held with presentations... ( more) |
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Vaal University of Technology launches French-South African Education Centre
Information from Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric South Africa has teamed up with the French Ministry of Education and the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) to launch a centre aimed at developing programmes to train technicians and higher technicians in the fields of energy, electricity and maintenance of automated systems... (more)
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SABS and TIA support young innovators
Information from Technology Innovation Agency
The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SABS valued at R30-million over three years, to give young innovators access to SABS standards, certification, training services and testing facilities. The MOU forms part of the Youth Technology Innovation Fund... ( more) |
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Commission approves merger of Aurecon and Net Group business operations
Information from Aurecon
Aurecon has announced that after filing a formal notification with the Competition Commission of Aurecon and NetGroup's intended merger, the companies gained full approval to proceed with the merger as of 1 March 2012... (more)
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Bagasse-based co-generation: Hippo Valley Estates in Zimbabwe
by Busiso Mtunzi, Ntshengedzeni Mampwheli, Edson Meyer; University of Fort Hare and Wilson Mungwena, University of Zimbabwe
The paper reports on the assessment of the use of bagasse for co-generation purposes at Hippo Valley Estates (HVE), a sugar manufacturing company in Zimbabwe. It was established that the power plant for the company could generate an annual surplus of $2,8-million as revenue, and the payback period was found to be 3,3 years... ( more) |
Using DFR to determine dissipation factor temperature dependence
by Matz Ohlen and Peter Werelius, Megger
With an aging power component population, today's electrical utility industry faces a tough challenge as failures and consequent repair and revenue loss may inflict major costs. Transformers have become one of the most mission critical components in the electrical grid... ( more) |
Protecting power transformers from common adverse conditions
by Ali Kazemi, and Casper Labuschagne, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories
Power transformers are used throughout the power system, and play an important role in power delivery and the integrity of the power system network as a whole. Power transformers have operating limits beyond which loss of transformer life can occur. This paper examines the adverse conditions to which a they may be subjected... ( more) |
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A review of HVDC in China
by Dale Pudney, High Voltage Technology SA
By 2018, about 60% of the installed capacity of HVDC schemes worldwide will be in China (in only 20% of the number of schemes). The result is that Chinese HVDC firms are now globally competitive on complete HVDC schemes, with 800 kV and 6400 MW schemes being standard... ( more) |
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Substation automation for the smart grid
Information from Cisco Systems
The smart grid promises a more efficient way of supplying and consuming energy. The smart grid is a data communications network integrated with the power grid that enables grid operators to collect and analyse data about power generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption - all in near real time... (more)
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Energy efficiency measures reward Imperial Hotel
by Braam Dalgleish, Energy Cybernetics
The latest National Energy Barometer Survey Award in the hotel category went to Imperial Hotel, a 100-year old hotel that proved it is able to operate the most energy efficient of all the entrants despite its age. Runner-up in the hotel category was the Hluhluwe Hotel (managed by UAS)... (more)
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Rechargeable batteries - Part 3: Lithium-ion batteries
by Dr. Paul Lefley, Ayodele Soge, University of Leicester and Jonathan Starkey, Converteam
Lithium-ion batteries have emerged in the last one and half decades to capture over half of the sales value of the secondary consumer market, with applications such as laptop computers, cell phones and camcorders (known as the "Three-C" market). Production capacity has recently been estimated to be 75-million cells per month... (more)
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Wind Atlas for South Africa (WASA)
Information from SANERI
The Wind Atlas for SA project is an initiative of the SA government, Department of Minerals and Energy (now DoE), and the project is co-funded by the UNDP-GEF through the SA Wind Energy Programme (SAWEP), and the Royal Danish Embassy. The SA National Energy Research Institute (SANERI) is the executing partner... (more)
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South African wind capacity credit studies - Part 2
Information from Digsilent
Renewable energies, such as wind energy, allow electricity production without consuming fossil resources and without any direct CO2 emissions. Just by producing electrical energy, the use of these sources is justifiable and represents in many locations an economical alternative to the use of fossil resources such as coal or oil... (more)
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