Going green

Dozens of Gauteng companies in multiple sectors are exploring ways to make their buildings more efficient, their processes less wasteful and their impact less harmful to the environment.

Every sector has potential for growth and innovation towards a more sustainable future and companies in Gauteng are showing the way.

The announcement in 2021 by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the threshold for companies to produce their own electricity without a licence would be increased from 1MW to 100MW was widely welcomed. To protect the grid, generation projects are still required to obtain a grid connection permit.

Large companies had been lobbying for this change to the power landscape for a long time. Not only will the policy relieve pressure on national utility Eskom but it will serve as a catalyst for massive new investment. Most of this new capacity will be in the form of renewable energy.

One example in Gauteng is Gold Fields, which is building a 40MW solar power station at its South Deep mine at a cost of R660-million. Daily Maverick reports that Roger Baxter, CEO of the Minerals Council, has said that South Africa’s mining industry is ready to build 2GW of renewable energy, valued at more than R30-billion.

South African mining companies are also looking at green hydrogen and taking advantage of the fact that many of the minerals needed to fire the new, low- carbon economy are found in South Africa. Mines and smelters are among the most obvious big consumers of electricity, but modern technology means that data centres and even shopping malls can now produce their own energy.

One of the biggest examples of this is the Mall of Africa in Waterfall City, where most of the huge roof is covered by what is believed to be the world’s largest integrated rooftop PV/diesel hybrid project. Attacq Property Group has undertaken to build sustainably across its portfolio. The installation will save 8 034 tons of CO2 annually and will result in 157 fewer coal trucks on the road per year. The PV plant was installed by Solareff, which owns a majority stake in GridCars.

Vukile Property Fund has decided to equip all of the malls in its portfolio with rooftop solar panels. Among its properties are malls in Boksburg and Soweto. The company says that installations across the group have the capacity to generate 2 089MWh annually. Retrofitting of light fittings has also taken place to improve energy efficiency.

Absa Bank has followed up on its decision to take its central Johannesburg campus off the national electricity grid. Investments in a 6 000-panel rooftop solar system (which cost R10-million), the synchronisation of gas and diesel generators and sophisticated water and underfloor heating systems have all contributed to massive energy savings. The bank estimates that the power it generates is 70% cleaner than that provided by the national grid.

The rooftop solar installation at Absa’s Pretoria office provides 17% of its electricity needs and the bank intends to continue rolling out solar solutions in addition to investigating battery solutions in pursuit of what it calls “net zero offices”.

Many energy-intensive 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 one of five renewable energy projects that Energy Systems SA is running in Johannesburg and is the first landfill gas generation project to fall under the REIPPPP.

In agriculture, there is urban and hydroponic farming, improved soil maintenance, better use of water and recycling and organic methods. The agricultural sector is also another source of organic waste which is being used to provide power. With thousands of cattle farmed near big cities to provide 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 company has plans to roll out small plants for farmers or agriprocessors who want to produce power for themselves.

At the Cavalier abattoir in Cullinan, biowaste conversion company ibert provides about a quarter of the power that the abattoir needs to function, at a competitive rate. In the process, all of the facility’s biowaste is disposed of.

In construction and property, the green movement is growing apace. Apart from green building certification (administered by the Green Building Council of SA), there is now an even higher standard which developers and architects are striving for, Living Building Challenge, in which a building goes beyond being net zero to being regenerative (ie, producing more water and power than it uses).

A recent headline, “Govt launches drive to green state properties” indicates that the state is moving in the green direction too. The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure recently launched an Integrated Renewable Energy and Resource Efficiency Programme (iREREP).

Transport and logistics

Eskom has announced that all staff cars will be EV in future. Companies in the transport and logistics sectors are moving quickly to prepare for a greener future. Another recent headline announced, “Sasol and Imperial logistics partner to reduce carbon footprint”. In this regard, gas is seen as important in helping South Africa transition to renewables and away from carbon fuels. Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA) and Sasol and organisations like the Council for Geoscience are working in these areas and logistics fleets are looking to use gas as well. Gauteng fleet entities such as Bulk Hauliers International Transport (BHIT) and SAB (which runs a massive national fleet of trucks) have signed agreements for gas suppliers from Renergen, the company running a big gas project in the Free State. Glass manufacturer Consol has also signed with them and TotalEnergies will establish a national distribution network.

Energy efficiency is a growing interest for government and the private sector. The Department of Energy has an Energy Efficiency Directorate and there are other organisations such as Southern African Energy Efficiency Confederation (SAEEC); South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI); Productivity SA and the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC).

Water is one of the key sectors where saving, reuse, recycling, filtration, storage, efficiency (nonleaking pipes) and new solutions are vital to progress towards a greener future. Rand Water’s environmental brand, “Water Wise”, attempts to make users aware of the need to value water and to use it wisely.

In terms of recycling and reuse, the packaging sector and many companies and industry associations connected to plastics, rubber and paper are trying to mitigate harmful side-effects arising from the manufacture and use of their products. One of the supporters of CleanCitySA, an organisation aiming to clean up Johannesburg, is Plastics SA.

Fibre Circle (the producer responsibility organisation for the South African paper and paper packaging sector) is working on compliance with national government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Fibre Circle aims to improve the recovery and recycling of paper and paper packaging and to develop products from recycled paper fibre that are commercially viable in their own right. It wants to get packaging products off the streets and away from landfills. The organisation reports that 46% of locally-produced paper products contain sustainably-sourced virgin fibre and that 54% of local paper products contain recycled fibre.

The Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA) reports that many paper and pulp mills are using byproducts from the chemical pulping process as a biomass fuel to drive the mills. Examples include tree residue and “black liquor”. ■