Double the power by 2026

Double capacity, quadruple demand...:rolleyes: I wonder if they have even forecast anything or if they are relying on the growth of the country to track their growth? I suspect the latter is the case. I doubt that they will be the sole provider by that stage, in which case these forecasts are worth little more than the ass they were sucked out of...
 
and by that time the energy demands will not be met by just double the current supply :rolleyes: So in 2026, we'll still be having rolling blackouts and paying an absolute fortune for the 'privilege'
 
Are we still going down the coal road? Why does Eskom not more seriously consider other power alternatives? We have more than enough wind, water and sun to make all of those feasable alternatives to coal.
 
ebudae said:
Are we still going down the coal road? Why does Eskom not more seriously consider other power alternatives? We have more than enough wind, water and sun to make all of those feasable alternatives to coal.
Click to expand...

No, we DON'T have enough wind and water .. the only viable alternative is Nuclear and that's being done already - there should be 5 of these plants (or at least 2 or 3) by 2026 ...

Let me explain though:

Water:
We are a "drought" country ... hydro power requires enormous dams (think Three Gorges, Itaipu or even the one we source power from, Cahora Bassa) At present we have TWO hydro stations (pumped storage NOT included) which provide under 1000MW of power .. these are on the Orange River and that is our biggest river. If our biggest river can't provide a lot of power, what else are we to use?

Wind:
Well, there is the Wind Farm in Vredendaal that should be up before 2012 (earlier hopefully) .. how big is it? 200MW MAXIMUM! ... Wind is maturing BUT the best farms are offshore farms that cover immense distances and have high power generators (5MW) .. the one that will be used on this pilot project are going to be maximum 2.5MW and well, at present, this is the best technology you can use on land. Also, we can't construct offshore farms because of the profile of the West Coast where it gets very deep, very quick! Wind should be a good alternate to municipalities for lighting of residential homes. Industry requires immense power and the coal stations are the only answer at the moment.

Sun:
This is interesting. My take is that the technologies are not mature enough. We have enough land where the quality of sunlight is excellent and if we utilise it, it would be awesome. Photovoltaic is not really the way to go as far as I know but Concentrated Solar Might be the answer. Hopefully, by 2026, one of the plants will be a Concentrated Solar Plant but ... as with wind, this will be only 200MW or so ... Think about it ... the coal plant outside the airport in Johannesburg has generators rated at around 60MW whereas Medupi will use 800MW generators. This leap has taken around 50 years to make. Given another 50 - 80 years, the technology will mature and sun-power will be our main source of power :)

Coal:
I read in Engineering News that the Waterberg (where Medupi is being built) has coal to last 200 years. This, I think, the largest deposit left on Earth and will probably be the only one providing coal in 100 years time. The article even mentioned that the coal supplies are so vast that EIGHT power stations could be built there and export coal still won't be affected.

That said, Eskom as far as I know are only going to build FOUR more coal plants. This includes Medupi and Kusile as well as another in the Waterberg and one near Sasolburg. This has been mentioned in the press of recent. After that, it's nuclear all the way until a better technology is found.

Lastly, the power industry is not like Telecoms or Television - a single power station will cost R100 BILLION to build. This excludes running costs (which are enormous) and the cost to get the power to the customers via Transmission lines and Distribution centres. To anyone who wants to enter this industry, good luck!
 
elsewhere...

pity the Nigerians. They have 3 to 4 times our population and only 10% of the power generation capacity. And serious obstacles to expand that.
 
As is the case with most of Africa...

There is hope though - The Inga Dam in The Congo can generate almost 40 000MW IF it's converted to a Hydro Station. Check it out on Wiki. That's enough for most of Africa's needs (well, except for SA) for quite a while into the future ... The problem is the red tape involved in getting the Transmission lines across the continent.
 
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