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O MAKE more electricity, companies are exploring ways to generate power from unconventional sources, while complementing the drive towards renewables. The coal-mining industry is dying and it will never come back. But a new start-up is breathing life into mining communities with an ingenious design that uses old mine shafts to generate energy. A development from the UK is making it possible for cheap energy to be generated by dropping weights down old mine shafts – which is good news for South Africa. Gravitricity, an energy start-up based in Edinburgh, has drafted designs for a winch and hoist system that would drop 12 000 ton weights down disused mine shafts. Similar to pumped hydro, the concept works by converting electrical energy to gravitational potential energy, according to a report by the BBC. Managing director of Gravitricity Charlie Blair said the company has devised a giant weight system that drops into disused mine shafts using gravity to create power on demand. The patented technology is based on a simple principle – raising and lowering a heavy weight to store energy – the same principle used to run pendulum clocks, with a weight acting as a power generator to
THE POWER GENERATION Energy innovation – South Africa is ready to get electrified and fight load shedding blackouts – using things from the old days in smart new ways
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