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POWER
Renewables
Eskom extends its green credentials How projects underway and in prospect are changing to South Africa’s power production profile
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yanda Nakedi has nearly two decades of experience with Eskom. She has held various positions within the South African energy enterprise - encompassing engagement in sales and customer services, distribution, to working as CEO of Eskom Development Foundation, to the role of general manager of strategy, technology and assurance at the company’s Generation Division. For most of 2011, and for all of 2012, she has acted as senior seneral manager at Eskom’s Renewables Business Unit, setting up the unit and implementing the utility-scale projects. Renewables fall well within her expertise. Ms Nakedi is a board member of South African Wind Energy Association. She is, also, chairperson of the Southern Africa Solar Thermal and Electricity Association (SASTELA). The Eskom Renewables Business Unit centralises and develops the utility’s renewable energy projects. These are: ● A 100 megawatt (MW) Concentrated Solar Power plant with between nine and 12 hours of storage, scheduled for construction on the outskirts of Upington in the Northern Cape. ● A 100MW wind farm near Vredendal in the Western Cape. ● Installation of up to 150MWp of solar photovoltaic electricity at Eskom’s head office in Sandton and at various Eskom sites around South Africa. Embracing CSP According to Ms Nakedi, says Eskom plans to start construction of a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in late 2014 and commission the facility by end-2016. She estimates the 100MW plant will generate the amount of electricity required to run 400,000 standard homes. “CSP with storage can go a long way to addressing our country’s peak demand,” she says. “We need to embrace CSP and allocate it a greater role in our energy mix.” Eskom’s participation in renewable energy
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The Klipheuwel Wind Energy Facility (Photo: Warren Rohner)
development, she adds, will help to create demand and stimulate development of local industry and job creation. Eskom is also strengthening transmission lines in the Northern Cape to ensure that CSP plants being developed by the public and private sectors can deliver their electricity to the national grid. A display of green credentials Ms Nakedi recently attended and spoke at Clean Power Africa in Cape Town, which welcomed some 600 local and international renewable energy experts, to focus on new opportunities in the hydropower and solar energy industries. As South Africa’s Energy Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters addressed delegates, Cape Town’s mayor Patricia de Lille said, “Sustainable sources of energy are essential to the future of Cape Town, as it is to all major cities throughout the world. In Cape Town we have to seek a delicate balance between the need to provide access to electricity for citizens, and that of constantly finding mechanisms to promote the use of efficient and diverse sources of sustainable energy. It is therefore apt that the Clean
African Review of Business and Technology - November 2012
Power Africa conference will see energy experts meet under one roof to discuss the best ways to ensure sustainable energy for all of Africa, which in turn can contribute to economic and social development.” In addition to Ms Nakedi, speakers at this event included: Councillor Xanthea Limberg, Chairperson: Energy and Climate Change Committee, City of Cape Town; Nelisiwe Magubane, Director General, Department of Energy, South Africa; Garth Aspeling, Mechatronic Engineer, Water and Sanitation Department, Utility Services Directorate, City of Cape Town; Mlamli Mabulu, Mechatronic Engineer, Water and Sanitation Department, Utility Services Directorate, City of Cape Town; Tinus Keyser. Chief Engineer and Turbine System Engineering Manager, Eskom Peaking Generation, Cape Town; and Christine Wörlen, Independent International Renewable Energy Expert, Germany. Delegates at Clean Power Africa were also afforded the opportunity to see renewable energy in action in the Western Cape, at the Steenbras Pumped Storage Scheme, the Klipheuwel Wind Energy Facility, and the Aquila CPV solar demonstration plant. ■