Hurry up and wait by Mike Rycroft, editor
While government departments and Eskom are forging ahead with programmes to ensure all is in place for the planned 9600 MW of nuclear power included in IRP 2030, industry, who will have to provide the plant, are waiting in the wings, hamstrung by a lack of commitment to plans... (more)
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The Jacob Marley column: Revolution in the air
Sir, One can almost smell the revolution in the air. Spring has pushed out winter, fracking has ousted its moratorium, trees are budding green and NERSA is girding for another round of multi-year price determinations. Change is a-coming. Out with the old, in with the new. Babies with bathwater... (more)
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Power licence grants a step in right direction by Carel Ballack, SESSA
NERSA and Energy Minister Dipuo Peters are to be congratulated for climbing yet another rung on SA's ladder to a sustainable energy future. SESSA Ombudsman Carel Ballack said it had taken over eight months, but power licenses have now been approved for the 28 renewable energy bidders announced in December last year... (more)
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Let's get to the facts about electricity prices by Mike Rossouw, EIUG
The Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), representing South Africa's mining and industrial companies, is concerned that there is insufficient clarity surrounding the press reports on MYPD3 and the reported rapidly escalating price increases... (more)
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Energize Inbox - our winning letter Rebuttal to letter to the editor, Energize April 2012
Sir, I state for the record that I am a solar photovoltaic practitioner and hence will exercise my professional right to write a rebuttal to the letter by Dr. Chris Herold that was published in the April 2012 edition of Energize... (more)
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The cost of electricity shortfalls in South Africa by Garth Zeitsman, Consultant Statistician
Estimating the economic cost of electricity shortages is an exercise of enormous uncertainty. To reduce the uncertainty, or, rather, to get a sense of its range, a variety of methods are used. Firstly, several economists have attempted various ways to calculate the direct costs of the shortfalls... (more)
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Failure of HV motors in generation plant Information from Cigr� group A1.19
Behaviour of high voltage motors has a strong influence on electricity generation in power plants, with serious financial consequences. Therefore, it is important to understand whether correlations could be found among work conditions, load, start-stop frequency, maintenance policy or other factors, and large HV motor failures... (more)
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Generation using gas-fuelled engines in South Africa - an overview Information from Agaricus
Gas engines have evolved are able to utilise a wide range of fuels including natural gas, biogas and coal seam gas (coal mine gas and coal bed methane). Some machines are able to use furnace gases (steel, ferrochrome, ferromanganese, calcium carbide production) in their engines to generate electricity... (more)
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Tracking the evolution of XLPE and water trees by Kieron Leeburn, CBi-electric: african cables
Water tree degradation has been a major cause of cable system failures. It is important to accurately predict the influence of water trees to avoid over designing cables making them uneconomical. Modern XLPE cables do not have the same early problems, and wet and dry designs currently find good service... (more)
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High voltage current transformers by Robin Coombs, Eskom
There are four basic types of high voltage current transformers. The hair pin tank type is typically made in South Africa for voltages up to and including 132 kV and is oil filled. This report looks at the 11 kV to 132 kV hair pin tank type made in South Africa... (more)
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Energy saving in electrical distribution networks by John Kotze and Mario Kuisis, Martec
The primary components in a typical electrical distribution network are examined from the point of view of energy losses to show how system design impacts on energy efficiency. Solutions are presented in which features of a greener technology are leveraged, yielding huge savings over the lifetime of the network.... (more)
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Transmission efficiency - lost in the middle by Dave Bryant, CTC Global Over the last several decades investor-owned utilities have spent huge amounts of money improving the efficiency of generation to reduce fuel consumption, conserve resources and improve their bottom line. Unfortunately, less consideration has been given to transmission efficiency, where nearly 8 to 10% of all energy generated is lost during transmission.... (more)
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Bimetallic conductors: A significant weapon in the war on copper theft by Thomas Horton, Fushi Copperweld Increasing worldwide demand for copper has caused copper prices to skyrocket in the last several years. Just ten years ago, copper cost about R13 910 per metric ton. Today, it's over R65 600. Adjusted for inflation, it translates into a demand for copper the likes of which have not been seen since electrification was brand new and the original power grid was being built... (more)
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Energy balancing: a tool for detecting and managing energy losses by Jan Olwagen, Utillabs
Revenue protection is an ongoing battle in most utilities, and has a direct link to the profitability of the utility and thus is of critical importance. Technology can play an important role in helping the revenue protection and energy losses team in their ongoing battle to minimise non-technical and technical losses... (more)
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Calculating total power requirements for data centres by Richard Sawyer, Schneider Electric
Part of data centre planning and design is to align the power and cooling requirements of the IT equipment with the capacity of infrastructure equipment to provide it. This paper presents methods for calculating power and cooling requirements,and provides guidelines for determining the total electrical power capacity needed to support the data centre... (more)
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What your mining operation needs from a power management system by Frank Kling, ETAP
The next generation of PC-based power management applications should have the capability to integrate an active blueprint of the system including system topology, engineering parameters, and other pertinent information (such as GIS assets) with time-synchronized data acquired for the purpose of visualising and depicting the actual operation of the system... (more)
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Renewable energy feed in tariffs, REBID, SASGI and the smart grid
by Dr. Wilfred Fritz, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
The renewable energy industry has experienced a laborious process with many course changes and reversals by government, NERSA and Eskom during the past several years. This paper discusses the relationship of this newly established South African Smart Grid Initiative and the renewable energy bid (REBID) programme... (more)
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Realistic guidelines to install a home solar system by Herbert Teubner, Sinetech
There is much talk about solar at this time and many 'want to be users' are often confused or unsure if they should install a solar system or not. There is an enormous amount of information available in magazines, newspapers, advertising, the Internet and TV which can be very confusing... (more)
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Protection system for photovoltaic (PV) systems Information from Surgetek
Excessive voltages and currents can threaten the operation of a PV plant. Such surges are mainly caused by lightning, but can also be due to faults in the grid. To ensure a path to earth for any lightning strike, or currents caused by overvoltage, is an extremely important factor in PV plant protection... (more) |
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