The Sustainable Energy Seminar 2010

The inaugural Sustainable Energy Seminar was held recently on the 6th of October 2010 at the CSIR International Convention Centre.  This one day event was organised by Alive2green, a media and events company that focuses specifically on education regarding the broader sector of sustainability in various key industrial sectors: Energy, Green Building, Transport, Water and Waste.

The attendance of over 120 delegates comprising of South Africa’s most established and influential decision makers, made for a very successful day of networking and also resulted in a solution-based summary and closing discussion held by Prof. Harold Annegarn during the concluding session of the day.

Dr Elsa du Toit and Michael Pead -

Introduction and Setting the Scene

Dr Elsa du Toit is an Associate Director in the Energy and Resources sector at Saha International and Michael Pead is one of the foundation Principals of Saha International whose experience includes having worked as an advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Du Toit and Pead opened the Sustainable Energy Seminar by setting the scene regarding our national policies and targets and begged the question: “but where are we?”

According to Du Toit and Pead, the targets we need to achieve are:

• An Energy Efficiency target of 12% reduction in energy demand by 2015
• A Renewable Energy target of 10,000 GWh by 2013
• An Electrification target of universal access by 2014
• Sustainable Development Targets in line with the Millennium Development Goals
• An Emission reduction target of 42% by 2025 (Questions for delegates to test throughout the day of the Seminar)

An important question raised was that in the absence of measurement, how do we know whether we are actually reaching the targets we have set?  What is the gap and why are things moving so slowly?  Du Toit suggested we may be focussing on too many things at the same time and should rather focus on realistic actions towards achieving the goals and also suggested that we need a firm basis to address the unique practical constraints that South Africa is facing.

Meher Sidwha -

CDM Case Study: From Start to Finish

After Du Toit and Pead had given a broad perspective of the situation that South Africa finds itself in, an international guest speaker from India, Meher Sidwha took the stage.  Sidwha is currently Assistant Vice President: CDM at Managing Emissions Pvt Ltd and delivered a CDM Case Study from start to finish.  Procedures for CDM are quite long and cumbersome and there isn’t always a guarantee of success.  According to Sidwha however, South Africa currently has 17 registered CDM projects out of the 2406 projects in total world-wide.  Sidhwa argues that there is still a considerable amount of opportunity for CDM projects in South Africa regardless of the procedural details.  Prof. Annegarn raises a concern regarding the lack of capacity in municipalities and whether or not that could impact the processes involved.  Sidwha’s ambition when coming to South Africa to speak about CDM was to give South Africa a clearer understanding of how the processes work and to therefore stimulate more interest in CDM in general.  It is her belief that South Africa can indeed benefit from these types of projects.

Kemraj Ojageer -

Energy Efficiency Strategy for the Gauteng Province

Kemraj Ojageer, the Chief Director : Quality Assurance & Technical Support for the Gauteng Department of Local Government and Housing, highlighted elements of the Gauteng Integrated Energy Strategy (GIES), the aim of which is to direct the way energy is supplied and used within the province during the next 5 to 45 years.  Gauteng’s Energy Use by Sector is as follows:

• Industry = 44%
• Transport = 21%
• Residential = 16%
• Freight & Transport = 14%
• Commerce = 4%
• Government = 1 %

Ojegeer mentions the main challenges facing the province as being funding; the fact that Guateng is still heavily reliant on non-renewable resources for energy together with the lack viable energy alternatives, deepening poverty and inequality and a limited mandate that provinces have around energy.  There are also growing service delivery backlogs in housing and electrification that need to be attended to which slow down progress considerably.  Prof. Annegarn comments regarding Ojegeer’s presentation: “Changeable policy undermines investor confidence”.

GIES’s way forward is to finalise the implementation plan; identify priority projects; start more detailed energy modelling and scenario assessments; develop a monitoring framework for the strategy; to build awareness and also to develop a website for communication purposes.

Corie Visagie - Electrical Supply and Demand –

What are the Challenges Over the Next Few Years?

Corie Visagie’s current portfolio at Eskom includes the development of demand management strategies to close the gap between demand and supply.  Visagie’s topic for discussion was “Electrical Supply and Demand – What are the Challenges Over the Next Few Years?”.  The presentation by an Eskom representative was an excellent catalyst for questions and answers and served to stimulate much debate from delegates.

Key Messages from Visagie included the following: South Africa has moved from a period of abundant, cheap electricity to a situation of looming shortages of supply and rising electricity prices, the shortage of electricity will probably last for at least 5 years and urgent decisions need to be taken to address this potential crisis.  All generation options have largely been identified and are expensive, however need to be pursued for MT and LT solutions.  Demand management options, specifically energy conservation and efficiency is the least cost, best environmentally friendly short term solution to address a number of challenges facing South Africa.

According to Visagie, Demand Management solutions need to provide sufficient contingency in the supply / demand forecast to mitigate risk associated with: reduced performance levels of the current generation plant; possible delays in the delivery of the new large power stations (Medupi & Kusile); higher than anticipated demand; and possible delays in the delivery of non-Eskom generation options.  In addition, the contingency will ensure opportunities for: additional space for maintenance of generation plant; minimising the overall cost to the consumer by avoiding excessive usage of OCGT’s, growth in electricity consumption, including large new projects. Visagie purports that although there is a current 5TWh annual energy surplus, the system remains “tight”.  It will therefore be appropriate to ensure that this “buffer” be maintained and planned far into the future.

As most of South Africa is aware, it is Energy Availability rather than Capacity that is the challenge but sufficient contingency will reduce the risk to the systems and build buffer to manage future pressure on the system.

Professor Anthony Turton -

Water/Energy/Food Nexus

Anthony Turton, a well known academic in the Water sector, advised that all South Africans need to focus on energy efficiency to contribute to the solution to what he calls the Water/Energy/Food NEXUS.  Simply put, water is a growing but complex source of risk
to the national economy and the Old Paradigm (Business as Usual) of Externalizing Costs is no longer sustainable.  The New Paradigm (Business Unusual) will need new thinking on:

• New Water (Dual Stream Reticulation with WWTW’s as a source)
• New Energy (Hydrogen, Geothermal, Solar, Wind)

In fact, Turton belives we need to merge three policy debates:

• National Water Security
• National Energy Security
• National Food Security

Sustainability in the New Paradigm will depend on reaching sensible trade-off’s between these three strategic issue-areas.

Turton described further what water has got to do with energy and food by explaining that because RSA is a water-constrained mining-based economy with a specific history, these three seemingly disconnected items are intimately linked.  In the next 3 – 5 years, the economics of water, energy and food will change the way we currently think.

Professor Harold Annegarn -

Energy as a Key Element of Sustainability

Harold Annegarn, a Professor at the Department of Geography: Environmental Management and Energy Studies at the University of Johannesburg was one of the principals to launch the Enerkey Sustainable Megacities Project – City Region Gauteng.  Enerkey is a partnership between German and South African Universities, and German and South African cities.  Included in the Enerkey programme is a module on energy efficiency in commercial and institutional buildings.  This sector represents one of the prime opportunities for the energy savings, both through structural additions and interior fittings and behavioural changes.According to Annegarn, our responses to global change must include a focus on Demand Side Management: Energy Efficiency - Reducing the overall use of energy per task in these sectors: Built environment; Urban planning; Mobility and transportation and Manufacturing.

Part of this focus must also include Supply Chain Management: Technology Change - A Move to low carbon energy supply technologies such as: Renewables, Solar, Wind, Biomass (various), Nuclear (?) and a plan for geo-economic and geo-political changes in global oil market.

The essence of Annegarn’s presentation was to illustrate the amount of energy that is being wasted by the poor housing, household and living conditions of many rurals areas in South Africa.  The typical shack constructions are fire risks, and when burnt down, are rebuilt in exactly the same way again, therefore perpetuating the cycle.  There is also resulting air pollution from the materials used for heat and energy in these areas.

Enerkey is seeing to it that there is an introduction of compulsory energy efficiency features in all new buildings, including RDP subsidy houses which could eliminate a large fraction of the space heating needs of Highveld dwellings.  Integrated energy planning is needed and will be focussed on to meet environmental risks and to attend to the social, economic and political factors in the non-electrified sectors of the energy economy. Annegarn highlighted that coal combustion in domestic appliances is an under researched and inadequately understood factor and that optimisation of domestic coal use could reduce pollution and deliver higher energy efficiency.

Marlett Balmer -

Efficient Biomass Energy Consumption in SA

Linking to this topic, was Marlett Balmer, who went on to explain more on the topic of “Efficient household biomass energy consumption in South Africa”. Domestic energy can be mitigated with the use of alternative stove appliances, specifically “Probec” stoves which are low cost appliances that have been tested in various African countries and that have proven to decrease the amounts pollutants within the home.

Balmer Reminded delegates that the energy crisis of Africa is in fact a biomass energy crisis.  Balmer provided a comprehensive analysis of the entire cycle for an introduction of improved stoves that included design, distribution, economics and social factors.  Cookstoves, Balmer mentioned, is an under-supported research area.

Sustainable Energy Seminar 2010 a Success

Alive2green, the organisers of this seminar, have reported that this particular seminar was a valuable addition to their conference repertoire, with exhibitors having received exceptional value due to the calibre of delegates that attended.  All of these presentations are downloadable for registered website users from the “presentation downloads” sub-menu button on the conference page on www.energy-resource.co.za.

Click here to view selected comments from delegates and exhibitors who attended the Seminar.

View feedback from the exhibitors from the Sustainable Energy Seminar 2010 here.