Sun and wind for SA energy needs

There's a big difference between photo-voltaic panels and solar water-heating. As pointed out earlier in this thread photo-voltaic panels are not as green as people think. Solar water-heating can save a lot of energy though. Hot-water geysers consume large amounts of energy, and are very wasteful.

As for coal-fired power stations, it's not just about the CO2 emissions, what about the millions of people who die every year from the toxic particles spewed into the air by them?

Nuclear is definitely the way to go.
 
But the thing is not to throw the baby out with the bath water... just because one solution won't meet all out needs doesn't mean you must exclude it. At one point one telecoms provider was OK. Those 15c as long as you can talk local phone calls of the past come to mind. Then one day we woke up and reallised that we were snookered.

Imagine if Telkom's ADSL was our only option for internet... not that we have too many options, but there are people who don't get ADSL and are thankful for alternates, not to mention those of us who travel and use 3G. And more than one sustainable source is better than none... otherwise we will be left to rely on Eskom to meet our needs... eish, no thanks.
 
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Beans beans beans beans beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot! :D
 
"Now you tell me, what do we do, in a developing country like us where we need to attract energy intensive business, if I say to you I will provide you electricity whenever the wind blows.

"We in South Africa need energy that is continuously available throughout the year."
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Considering the current rolling blackouts, is that not almost the point we are at at the moment - electricity that is sometimes available...
Bradbowlllama said:
Everything we do today has an impact tomorrow, the problem lies with people who don't know the real issues making the decisions... not to mention those with their own interests... It's why we are in this eskom soup and why we will likely be in the future... however if theres something you and I can do now to rely on Eskom less, I think that's not a bad thing.
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Considering that Eskom doesn't currently have a solution to the country's power requirements, and that we are about to be hit with price increases [albeit to discourage frivolous usage], just imagine how much more it will cost us in the future for whatever solutions Eskom does decide to implement - eventually, it makes sense to reduce our reliance on Eskom for electricity and should save households a lot of money over time.
bwana said:
The whole idea behind public utilities is that we shouldn't have to install anything at home.
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Yes, we shouldn't have to, but this is South Africa where idiots are put in charge of key guavamental departments, and while residents are not allowed to self provision our own telecoms requirements to interconnect with the rest of the country and the world, we can certainly try to heat our water with sunlight.

Up to 40% of the average household's electricity bill can be attributed to heating water in geysers, at least part of that 40% per month could be offset by using sunlight, unfortunately the initial investment is expensive and will take several years to pay for itself. Solar heating is on my own todo list for 2008.
 
ic said:
Solar heating is on my own todo list for 2008.
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I am seriously considering this too and the wind turbine in my previous link. The local agent has offered me one at cost and I can DIY with the install as he wants to get them into the suburbs - currently they are installing on farms mainly. Even if I can run my lights and security off the turbine I'll be alot happier.
 
Bradbowlllama said:
I am seriously considering this too and the wind turbine in my previous link. The local agent has offered me one at cost and I can DIY with the install as he wants to get them into the suburbs - currently they are installing on farms mainly. Even if I can run my lights and security off the turbine I'll be alot happier.
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How much power do they generate? First I'd heard of them, the home ones, was reading this a few days ago, doesn't seem like a bad option.
 
An advantage of solar heaters / Solar PV panels on your roof, is that less sun reaches the roof and in summer it means less aircon required.

In winter one could pump the hot water (heated by solar panels) through the rooms below and use radiator type heaters to heat the rooms - effectively taking the heat at roof level and distributing it where it matters.

This is the main reason we are considering solar stuff for our offices - the reduced energy requirements for aircon and heating.
 
Syndyre said:
How much power do they generate? First I'd heard of them, the home ones, was reading this a few days ago, doesn't seem like a bad option.
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Have a look:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=btyfqyv1p8c

Bear in mind that they generate power to charge a battery and the inverter does the rest. There is a little bit extra to purchase if you want to connect it to the Eskom side (gov't requirement), but for internal use, it's complete - about R14k The little extra is not alot more I believe.
 
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Bradbowlllama said:
Have a look:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=btyfqyv1p8c

Bear in mind that they generate power to charge a battery and the inverter does the rest. There is a little bit extra to purchase if you want to connect it to the Eskom side (gov't requirement), but for internal use, it's complete - about R14k The little extra is not alot more I believe.
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Cool, although TBH I expected it to generate more power for that price.
 
Bradbowlllama said:
I agree, but I think it's all relative... and it's going to become "more relative" in our near future with Eskom's new pricing.
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True, it also depends how cheap batteries are, if you can generate power whenever there's wind and store it relatively cheaply for when you need it it'll be more efficient. Also depends how much wind you get. :D At least with wind it could theoretically run 24/7, unlike solar.
 
Syndyre said:
True, it also depends how cheap batteries are, if you can generate power whenever there's wind and store it relatively cheaply for when you need it it'll be more efficient. Also depends how much wind you get. :D At least with wind it could theoretically run 24/7, unlike solar.
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Being from the EC, wind isn't a problem :D
They've always called us the ass end of Africa and I'm finally beginning to understand why!
Apparently we get alot more than required to run it efficiently. Battery tech is on the up but yeah, you have to get a good battery. Check out their site - there's some interesting stuff there.

http://www.kestrelwind.co.za/

http://www.kestrelwind.co.za/news_article.asp?ID=209 said:
Large-scale power storage is crucial to our energy future: the Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. utility industry's leading R&D consortium, says that storage would enable the widespread use of renewable power and make the grid more reliable and efficient. Recent announcements by utility giant American Electric Power (AEP), based in Columbus, OH, suggest that grid storage technologies are finally ready for commercial deployment in the United States. Last month, AEP ordered three multi-megawatt battery systems and set goals of having 25 megawatts of storage in place by 2010, and 40 times that by 2020.

"That was a dream four or five years ago; now it is happening," says AEP energy-storage expert Ali Nourai.

The AEP system uses a sodium-sulfur battery about the size of a double-decker bus, plus power electronics to manage the flow of AC power in and out of the DC battery. Though new to the United States, the system has been used at the megawatt scale in Japan since the early 1990s; the battery was produced by NGK Insulators of Nagoya, Japan
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Bradbowlllama said:
Being from the EC, wind isn't a problem :D
They've always called us the ass end of Africa and I'm finally beginning to understand why!
Apparently we get alot more than required to run it efficiently. Battery tech is on the up but yeah, you have to get a good battery. Check out their site - there's some interesting stuff there.

http://www.kestrelwind.co.za/
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Wasn't sure where you were from, definitely more than enough here. :D Thanks I'll take a look.
 
Syndyre said:
Wasn't sure where you were from, definitely more than enough here. :D Thanks I'll take a look.
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I hate to say "Telkom" but they are using these babys - piloting at Klipfontein near Pretoria and Haga Haga here in the EC...
Not bad output by the looks of things...
http://www.kestrelwind.co.za/content.asp?PageID=268
Power requirement of the repeater station is estimated to be around 2 kWh per day, an annual demand of around 750 kWh. The Klipfontein site has a low wind regime with an annual average wind speed of 3.32 m/s. However the e300i more than adequately supplies this power with an annual yield at 3.3 m/s of just less than 850 kWh. Haga-haga’s annual average wind speed is 4.99 m/s, in this moderate to high wind regime the e300i has an annual yield of greater than 2000 kWh.
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Oh, and as for folk calling EC the ass end of Africa, my response is always "and I suppose you are just passing through" :D
 
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