SPECIAL FEATURE
Powering cities with renewable energy A shift in policy will promote small-scale generation.
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outh Africa’s successful Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) has created large-scale solar and wind farms in areas where there is lots of space, but the country’s smallest province by landmass is also taking big strides to procure energy from renewable sources. Gauteng is the country’s most densely populated area (with a population of over 14-million) and contributes about a third of South Africa’s GDP (R1.59-trillion in 2017). In a short space of time, an entirely new sector has been created within the South African economy through legislation that invited local and foreign investors to bid for and then build renewable energy generation plants. South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) requires 20 000MW of renewable energy by 2030. That will be achieved mainly through the REIPPPP. Many companies and institutions are generating their own power. In Johannesburg, the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works, the largest of six wastewater plants serving the city, has its own electricity source in a 1.1MW biogas plant. It produces electricity using cogeneration (combined heat and power) and is helping the city to reduce expenditure on its water treatment works, which used to run to R100-million per year. A landfill site at Robinson Deep in Johannesburg has started generating 3MW of gas. This is the first of five renewable energy projects that Energy Systems SA is going to do in Johannesburg and is the first landfill gas generation project to fall under the REIPPPP. Agriculture is another source of organic waste which is being used to provide power. With thousands of cattle farmed near big cities to provide
GAUTENG BUSINESS 2019/20
beef and dairy products, biogas is a useful byproduct. The Bronkhorstspruit Biogas Plant, run by Bio2Watt, has an installed capacity of 4.6MW which it produces from annual feedstock of about 120 000 tons of organic waste. The plant is located in the Tshwane Metropolitan area on the premises of Beefcor, one of South Africa’s largest feedlots. The image of the feedlot and plant (below) is supplied by Danish company Combigas who teamed up with Bosch Projects to design, manufacture and install the plant. The company has plans to roll out small plants for farmers or agri-processors who want to produce power for themselves. National power regulator NERSA has been asked by the National Minister of Mineral Resources to consider granting licences to smallscale power producers to sell any excess power. The likely granting of these licences will open up the market and help small manufacturers to cover the cost of installing generating capacity.
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