Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Lindon - there is something very interesting about the precise nature of the dispatchable generation described - specifically the requirement to only be dispatchable between 05h00 and 21h30 - i.e. not outside of those times.
Of course by-and-large this matches with human demand profiles, it would be crazy to build a grid which did not, but the problem facing your manufacturers of solar panels is that it is unlikely that they would be generating PV electricity at either of these time. Thus if you are going to make your PV farm meet the dispatchability criteria it has to fall back on energy storage twice a day (at least).
The early morning demand is supplied from the battery, which has been charged by the grid overnight. Mid-day demand is provided direct from the solar panels, which are also using their extra capacity to recharge the batteries. Late in the evening the batteries discharge a second time to meet demand then.
This is two charge-discharge cycles per day. It is what Fortune and Pat Frampton were talking about when we visited the Eskom battery test centre last year. It is perfect for VRFB's which get cheaper the more you use them, unlike Lithium-ion which just dies more quickly.
You will see Levelised Cost of Storage calculations start to consider these kinds of duty cycles more and more - up until now they have only worked on the assumption of a single charge-discharge cycle per day, because that's what Lithium-ion can do, but this will not stay like this, because humans get up before the sun and typically stay awake for more than 12 hours.
In addition to gazetting the Minister of Energy’s Sector 34 determination to procure 11,813MW of power by 2022, the Department of Mineral Resources also convened a bidders’ conference to address the country’s emergency power procurement needs.
The DMRE hosted the virtual conference on 25 September to explain the recently launched Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP).
The department said in a statement the conference was attended by more than 1,000 delegates, including registered and other interested bidders, project developers, financiers and energy sector stakeholders.
Read more:
South Africa Breakthrough for procurement of surplus electricity
South Africa seeks to boost grid system with dispatchable power
South Africa’s DMRE budget shows a changing landscape
South Africa’s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP2019) indicates a short-term electricity supply gap of about 2,000MW between 2019 and 2022.
Eskom itself says its needs 4,000MW in the short to medium term to address the country’s electricity supply crises. This RMIPPPP is a direct response to fill the stated 2,000MW of supply gap and reduce the use of expensive diesel-based peaking electrical generators in the medium to long term.
The IPP Office says the RMIPPPP is “an innovative approach that once again puts South Africa at the forefront of global innovation in the electricity procurement”.
The innovative and defining part of this emergency procurement programme is a one-of-a-kind output-based Request for Proposal (RFP), which asks for an optimal solution to meet grid requirement without prescribing what technology needs to be used.
Eskom, as the system operator, specifies the system requirement only stating the solution should be “dispatchable, flexible generation able to operate between 05h00 and 21h30. This complements the daily demand profile and is in line with the loadshedding times that we have been experiencing. The solution also has to be able to provide energy, capacity and ancillary services to Eskom”.
Power procurement process has Eskom seeking a low cost, hybrid solution..........
https://www.esi-africa.com/industry-sectors/generation/procurement-bidding-process-for-emergency-electricity-explained/
If they could generate electricity from political hot air we would be screwed. How long does it take to award a contract or move platforms for that matter. Also everything on planet Boris is world class, unless it's world beating of course. ******.
https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/cyrilramaphosa/cyril-ramaphosa-eskom-we-are-making-progress-in-overcoming-the-challenges-20200928
A government we have decided that to grow our economy and attract investment, secure and sustainable energy supply is paramount.
It is therefore vital that we significantly, and speedily, increase our electricity generation capacity.
Additional power generation
Following the commitments we made in the State of the Nation Address in February, government has now gazetted ministerial determinations that will enable the development of more than 11,800 megawatts (MW) of additional power generation. To give a sense of the scale of this development, South Africa currently has in the region of over 30,000 MW of electricity available on the national grid each day.
This signals government’s clear intention to move ahead with one of the key reforms that is needed to unlock the growth of our economy and attract much-needed investment.
This new energy will be procured from diverse sources, including solar, wind, gas, coal and storage. While meeting our energy needs well into the future, this new capacity will also help us meet our international obligations to reduce carbon emissions.
This electricity will be procured through a transparent tendering process that prioritises competitiveness and cost-effectiveness.
Most importantly at a time when energy supply is severely constrained, new generation projects that can be connected to the grid as soon as possible will be prioritised. The next step, which will be following soon, is to initiate various procurement bidding windows including opening Bid Window 5 of the renewable energy independent power producer programme.
This is in addition to the 2,000 MW of emergency power that is being urgently sought through the Risk Mitigation Procurement Programme to meet the country’s current energy shortfall.
In an effort to facilitate electricity self-generation and as part of the reform process, we have removed the licensing requirement for self-generation projects under 1 MW. So far 156 self-generation facilities under 1 MW have been registered, with a total installed capacity of 72 MW.
For facilities that can generate above 1 megawatt, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa is improving its licensing processes to improve turnaround time. So far, five such facilities, with total installed capacity of 25 megawatts, have been licenced. Further work is being undertaken to reform the regulatory environment to ensure that we make fuller use of the great potential in this country for self-generation among commercial and industrial users.
As part of our regulatory reforms, draft amendments to regulations that would enable municipalities in good standing to procure their own power from independent power producers will soon be gazetted.