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Assessing South African - American renewable energy projects
Pierre Potgieter, assistant editor at EE Publishers, went on a week-long tour of South Africa, sponsored by the US Embassy, in search or various innovative renewable energy projects. The articles below are a diary of his travels.
Travelling the roads of the Northern Cape beyond Sishen, one encounters pools of light which look like farm dams in the semi-desert landscape. However, on closer inspection these turn out to be utility-scale solar farms. One such installation in the heart of the Northern Cape about 30 km from Postmasburg is the 96 MW Jasper solar farm. This solar farm sheds light on a combined solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) model which sets out to create RE for base-load power... ( more) An aspect of the USA's partnerships in South Africa is research and development in the field of energy. Energy investment makes up roughly 5% of US AID's investment in South Africa. The CSIR is one facility which has adopted a strong energy research focus, through its recently established Energy Centre. Micro-grid projects at the ABB Longmeadow Campus and the CSIR Pretoria Campus, and the latest BMW electric vehicles, were just some of the innovative clean energy projects reviewed... ( more)
Despite noble intentions and local content policies, most RE jobs in SA are at the bottom of the value chain, and are semi-skilled and often only temporary. However, a stone's throw away from the East London airport, near the golden shoreline of the Wild Coast, sits a budding giant of an industrial park: the East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ). The ELIDZ is setting its sights on RE through the development of significant manufacturing capacity in this sector... (more)
Greeting passers-by about two-hours' drive along the meandering N2 towards Caledon, nine gigantic 3 MW wind turbines, perched on the rolling green hills of the scenic Cape Overberg region, are indicative of the changing attitudes towards RE. Suitably called the Dassiesklip Wind Facility, with the turbines seemingly randomly perched on high-points, the turbines co-exist on an operational farm where the entrepreneurial farmer farms with sheep and grains, and also makes bricks... (more)
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New Energy Update South Africa conference outcomes
New Energy Update South Africa took place on 8 and 9 June 2016.
Click here to purchase the outcomes, learnings and debate that took place.
The full set of 40+ presentations and audio recordings are available here, including:
- 5+ hours of panel debates with industry leaders like ACWA Power, Abengoa, Solarreserve, Acciona, X-Elio, Suzlon, Gamesa, Mulilo, Juwi, IDC, TSK, SENER, RMB, DBSA, and the SA government
- Plenary sessions with experts from across the renewables industry, tackling governmental and legislative challenges, accessing finance and investment, and optimizing returns in the future of renewable energy across Southern Africa
- 3 tracks - CSP, PV and wind - delving into the technical specificities to help to solve business challenges and drive the industry's progress.
Click here to access the first-hand data and research, fresh learnings and debate from New Energy Update South Africa.
For further information, contact Amy Allebone-Salt, New Energy Update, Email: aallebone-salt@fc-bi.com
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