Energy

Infrastructure for carrying newly-generated power is a priority.

Showing two phases proposed for the development of Renewable Energy Development Zones (REDZs) and electricity grid infrastructure corridors where investment in transmission infrastructure is planned. Credit: CSIR

The second phase of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) energy in South Africa proposes three additional Renewable Energy Development Zones (REDZs) for wind and solar photovoltaic energy projects, taking the total number to 11 (see map).

The REDZs support the implementation of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2019). Renewable energy projects that might be developed in these new REDZs have the potential to make significant contributions to mine rehabilitation and, by creating jobs, support a just energy transition in the specified areas including areas where coal power stations are planned to be decommissioned by 2030.

A most important aspect for South Africa as it brings more and more renewable energy projects on line are the so-called “transmission corridors”. These have to be beefed up to be able to carry extra capacity if energy plants are built where transmission infrastructure is close to (or at) full capacity. This adds to the attractiveness of using existing power plant sites for new generation.

Part of the equation for agreeing to new power generation in the current context is whether or not there is sufficient carrying capacity to link the new solar or wind plant to the grid. Large investments are needed to beef up the Northern Cape’s capacity, but the problem is also leading planners to find different solutions, for example, to start

SECTOR INSIGHT Komati power station is become a site for making mini-grid components.

exploring more carefully whether other provinces (with under-utilised infrastructure) might not be sensible locations for new renewable-energy plants. National utility Eskom has signalled that it wants to move into the new era, partly through a process whereby the entity will be broken into three more competitive units, but more immediately through the announcement in July 2022 of 18 winnings bids from independent power producers (IPPs) for renewable projects on Eskom land, 4 000ha of which the utility has made available for this first phase.

Eskom owns 36 000ha in Mpumalanga alone. A total of 1 800MW will become available to the grid and it will be cheaper to transmit because the solar or wind plants will be right next to the existing Eskom transmission lines.

Eskom is undertaking studies to assess the potential impact on local communities of power plant closures. Options to get these plants producing energy again include gas, biomass and hydrogen but it is possible they might be used for something quite different. The workshops of Komati power station are to be converted into a factory for the manufacture of components for containerised mini-grids.

Eskom wants to be a net-zero company by 2050

Sasol has announced plans to start producing 1 200MW of renewable energy by 2030. Sasol is an integrated oil, gas and chemicals company with more than 30 000 employees and operations in 31 countries. Products manufactured by Sasol include synthetic fuel, petroleum, paraffin, jet fuel, creosote, bitumen, diesel and lubricants. The primary feedstock for synthetic-fuel production is coal.

The National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) is expending considerable energy (renewable, mostly in the form of brain power) to help commercial operations use less energy. A programme of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) housed within the Council For Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the NCPC also spent some money in rolling out an aspect of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Programme to large poultry company Daybreak Farms. Through improved energy management, the replacement of office lights with LED, the reduction of idling and heat loads in cold rooms and training, an overall energy consumption of 0.98% was achieved and energy savings of 916.85GJ were made.

South Africa’s acclaimed Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) attracted about R200billion in committed investments, mostly in solar and wind power, in just five years. The first bidding window of the REIPPPP was announced in December 2011. By October 2021, the programme could boast of 5 423MW of renewable electricity capacity from 83 IPP projects, accounting for 7% of the country’s energy demand. The latest bidding rounds of South Africa’s independent power producers programme have revealed astonishing low costs: in round five the lowest solar generation bid came in at 37.5c/ kWh while one of the wind power offerings was priced at 34.4c/kWh.

In June 2021 President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that private entities could go ahead and produce electricity without a licence, raising the threshold from 1MW to 100MW at a stroke. Intensive energy users such as mining houses had been arguing for this policy initiative for a long time, as had manufacturers in the sugar and timber milling industries, which produce vast amounts of biomass which can be turned into energy. The presidential announcement was almost universally welcomed by interested parties, including the CEO of national utility Eskom, which is struggling to keep South Africa supplied with sufficient power. Mining companies such as SibanyeStillwater and Gold Fields want to marshal renewable energy resources to power their own operations. Another big game-changer in the South African energy landscape will be the unbundling of Eskom, referenced above.

An Independent Transmission System and Market Operator was set to be established. Companies such as Earth & Wire are preparing to become independent utilities in a more flexible energy environment. ■

ONLINE RESOURCES

National Cleaner Production Centre: www.industrialefficiency.co.za National Energy Regulator of South Africa: www.nersa.org.za South African Independent Power Producers Association: www.saippa.org.za South African Wind Energy Association: www.sawea.org.za

South Africa is on the path to green hydrogen exports

Thomas Roos, Principal Research Engineer at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), reports on cooperation with three German ministries.

Thomas Roos, Principal Research Engineer, CSIR

Under the Just Energy Transition Partnership announced at COP26 in Glasgow, the governments of UK, France, Germany, the USA and the EU have agreed to provide $8.5-billion in financing in the form of grants and soft loans, to assist South Africa to decarbonise the electricity sector by early retirement of coal-fired power plants and expansion of renewables, to accelerate the introduction of electric vehicles and to facilitate the adoption of green hydrogen. In February, the Department of Science and Innovation released the Hydrogen

Society Roadmap. In November at the South African

Green Hydrogen Summit, President Ramaphosa announced that the Just Energy Transition Investment

Plan, recently released for public comment, has identified green hydrogen as one of the four “big frontiers” of a just energy transition, indicating that it has huge growth and investment potential.

CSIR research is showing ways that South Africa can become a significant exporter of green hydrogen and the body is already involved in projects with several German ministries.

It may therefore legitimately be asked: “What is green hydrogen, and why is it important?” While the term green hydrogen is often used to describe hydrogen produced from any non-fossil-fuel-based source (such as biogenic or nuclear), in this context it is more strictly defined as hydrogen produced by splitting water by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity from renewable sources. Green hydrogen may therefore be regarded as renewable electricity stored in chemical form.

Green hydrogen is important for the decarbonisation required by the Paris Agreement (signed and ratified by 193 countries) and the European Green Deal (which commits the EU to be carbon-free by 2050). The most efficient and generally lowest-cost decarbonisation approach is to convert current fossil-driven processes to instead be directly driven by renewable electricity. There are two scenarios, however, where this direct renewable electrification is not always possible or feasible.

Geography dictates The first scenario involves geographic locations where energy demand exceeds feasible renewableelectricity supply. This is the case for Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and a signatory to both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It is also in the top four importers globally of the three major chemical energy vectors (coal, oil and natural gas). Its decarbonisation options are constrained: it has very limited natural energy resources and the Fukushima disaster significantly dampened public appetite for nuclear power. As a result, Japan plans to move its economy towards hydrogen – mobility by fuel cell electric vehicles, homes powered by fuel cells (with the waste heat produced providing domestic water heating) and central power generation from combined-cycle power stations,

fired by green ammonia. To allow this, from 2030 Japan will import about 300 000 tons of hydrogen per year (at a target price of $3 per kilogram), rising to between five-million and 10-million tons of hydrogen per year by 2050.

This presents an opportunity for South Africa: CSIR modelling has shown that the combination of South Africa’s excellent solar and wind resources and the expected cost reductions over time in solar PV, wind and electrolyser equipment allow green ammonia produced in South Africa to be delivered to Japan in 2030, meeting the Japanese cost target.

Difficult sectors The second scenario involves two broad categories of hard-to-abate economic sectors. The first category is heavy-duty, long-range transport where the use of batteries is ruled out by range, power density or charging time limitations, such as commercial aviation, maritime shipping and long-distance trucking.

The second category is a subset of carbonintensive industrial processes, such as iron and steelmaking, cement manufacture, ammonia production and the manufacture of plastics. Green hydrogen, together with its derivatives such as green ammonia, green methanol and sustainable aviation fuel, provides a pathway to decarbonise these sectors.

For Germany to meet its decarbonisation targets, the National Hydrogen Strategy of the German Government states that between 2.7-million and 3.3-million tons per year (90-110 TWh/year) of green hydrogen will be required by 2030, but that only a maximum of 420 000 tons per year (14 TWh/year) can be generated in-country (14% of this amount). By far the bulk of the green hydrogen will have to be imported, some from elsewhere in the EU such as Portugal, Spain and the Ukraine; and the remainder from renewablerich countries in a development relationship with Germany, such as South Africa.

Three separate German federal ministries are funding projects to develop the green hydrogen economy in South Africa: BMWK (Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), BMZ (Economic Cooperation and Development) and BMBF (Research and Education), and CSIR is involved in each of these. In a project funded by BMWK, CSIR and Meridian Economics were contracted by KfW Development Bank to solicit, evaluate and rank applications from hydrogen developers for 200-million euros in concessional financing to fund green hydrogen projects in South Africa. From 55 initial applications, a longlist of 20 projects passed the initial filtration process, leading to a shortlist of between seven and 12 projects, depending on the breakdown of grant versus concessional-loan financing. The oversubscription of the funding shows significant market appetite.

CSIR is well positioned to support the energy transition in this way, as the development and implementation of green hydrogen will draw on many of CSIR’s capabilities. ■

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