Some of South African Energy Futures

The Field School Blog lives! Even though the field school is done and all our favourite participants are hard at work trying to get their reports and maps done, we will continue the virtual learning tour! Let’s start.

During the recent Conference for Global Change (held at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University between 01-05 Dec - http://globalchange2014.nmmu.ac.za/) a theme of particular interest encompassed the future of energy in South Africa. With this, an Energy Security field trip was organised and visited some energy projects of interest around the Port Elizabeth (PE) area.

PE, commonly known as the “windy city” is well known for blowing people off their feet and kids flying kites, however now the city can add wind energy to this mix. Thus, the trip began at the Metrowind Van Staden Wind Farm (http://metrowind.co.za/home). This project has nine 3 MW wind turbines, together producing 27 MW. In total this project amounted to approximately R 550 million (it is worth noting that Medupi will cost R 150 billion to produce almost 5000 MW). It is expected that the project will breakeven in less than 10 years, and start making remarkable profits as it continues to sell this renewable energy source (at a good REFIT tariff) to Eskom for a further 20 years. South Africa currently aims to produce almost 4000 MW of total renewable energy by 2016; with wind forming a substantial amount of this. These projects will be run, mostly by foreign-based companies.

Wind Resource Atlas, highlighting regions with most promising wind energies (http://www.wasaproject.info/)

Trip to Metrowind Van Staden Wind Farm, with happy cows and happy students; maybe only unhappy birds - the blades spin at more than 100 km/h

The trip then moved on to the Crossways Farm Village. Here, the South African Rhino Group has constructed an R 8 million house that runs completely off the National Energy Grid and produces its own electricity and its own water treatment plant (http://crosswaysfarmvillage.co.za/news/virtual-tour-house-rhino). The house uses a plethora of renewable energy sources, including solar PV, wind and a heat pump system. The idea is that Crossways Farm Village will have several self-sufficient houses forming the community of the Future. A good question to raise here is that what happens to the vast accumulation of battery waste?

Byron, from the Rhino Group giving a guided tour through the Rhino House. Completely self/energy-sufficient. Filters and treats its own water and produces its own methane gas! But, will cost you a substantial R 8 million

Finally, the trip visited the InnoVenton labs near NMMU. Here, Prof. Ben Zeelie, the director of InnoVenton presented a fascinating method of converting coal dust/ash waste to a combustible fuel (http://news.nmmu.ac.za/News/First-public-showcasing-of-cutting-edge-algae-to-e). The carbon ash would normally amount to a large proportion of waste material associated with coal-fired energy production. However, with the highly innovative method of algal-adsorption, the coal dust binds together and forms a fuel ready for re-burning. The exact mechanism of how the algae adsorbs onto the coal is still unknown.

"Coalgae" - don't fear, there's no Alien activity here, simply highly innovative science of algae adsorbing onto coal dust; creating a fuel ready for re-combustion

These applications show major promise and highlight a bright future for South African Energy Security. And now, I have to run, load shedding awaits...