Member Info for pb940

The third contributor is the nearly R10bn in tax-breaks for households and businesses to install rooftop solar arrays which Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced in his recent annual Budget Speech. Whilst there have been some criticisms, the scheme is certainly a small step in the right generation.

Finally, we are sitting on a largely untapped potential in the form of renewable energy. From November 2013 to 31 December 2022, more than 6 gigawatts of wind, solar PV and concentrated solar power came online in South Africa, according to the CSIR.

Wind and solar power already generate twice as much power for the nation’s grid than nuclear power, without the downside of radioactive waste that requires safe disposal for a million years.

Eskom’s most recent Generation Connection Capacity Assessment shows that the Northern Cape’s grid is at full capacity, while the Western and Eastern Cape each have just 5GW available. These provinces have some of the world's best, and cheapest, solar and wind resources – which we must capitalise on.

Consider that the average prices in bid window 5 had a weighted average price of 42.9c/kWh, while the wind came in at a weighted average price of 49.5c/kWh. There’s still 23GW of grid capacity available elsewhere, and renewables are well placed to address this. Mpumalanga – where Eskom has the bulk of its increasingly shaky coal-fired fleet – has 6.5GW available.

Right now, these measures may all seem like Band-Aids. And while South Africa’s energy-crisis has never been more serious, so the solutions at hand have perhaps never been more promising: the nexus of cheaper-than-ever renewable energy and the massive advances in battery-storage are a catalyst for green power to help drive us beyond energy-insecurity.

And beyond that, 600m Africans still live without electricity, needlessly so considering the continent’s access to talent and vast resources: mineral, solar and wind. Could South Africa’s energy travails hold lessons for energy transition on the continent? I believe so, but we need those in charge to maintain momentum and make the right decisions to help unleash change, and help achieve a just energy transition – for South Africa and beyond.

https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/cheap-renewables-and-battery-storage-a-light-in-dark-times-2023-03-14

As myths about renewables are gradually busted, their potential to drive Africa-wide growth becomes apparent, writes Chris Antonopoulos

Recent events in South Africa’s energy sector have highlighted – as if there were any doubt – the need to make up for lost time on the country's energy security.

As Africa’s largest pure-play renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) , with over 1GW of wind power in operation across Egypt, Senegal and South Africa, and a pipeline of additional projects in development across the continent – we share the urgency that South Africans feel in making loadshedding a thing of the past.

The outlook is still difficult, with the prospect of Eskom increasing its loadshedding up to 16 stages in an effort to avert a complete collapse of the grid. While this seems a crushing prospect for businesses and householders, the consequences of a grid collapse would be dire and full restoration of power could take many weeks.

There are also some points of light in what can seem like unending darkness: the City of Cape Town has for example rolled out facilities for businesses and homes to sell power back to the grid. Compared to the scale of South Africa’s energy-crisis, this might seem like a drop in the ocean, but there are a number of examples of robust efforts to get beyond it.

First, the advances in battery storage: last year Eskom awarded contracts to two service providers for the rollout of its Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project. The World Bank-funded project is designed to manage demand during peak periods and support grid stability. Its first phase comes onstream five months from now and the second by December 2024.

The project will use large-scale utility batteries with a daily capacity of 1440MWh, and 60MW of solar PV at Eskom sites in the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The KwaZulu-Natal project alone will store and distribute enough electricity to power a small town for four hours. More recently, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 513MW of battery storage at five substations in the Northern Cape.

The second factor, linked directly to the first, is South Africa’s famed mineral wealth: Bushveld Energy is commissioning SA’s first vanadium electrolyte factory and aims to produce about a million litres of vanadium electrolyte this year. It will reach full capacity of 8m litres over the next four years, making it the biggest such facility outside of China.

This is timely considering the economies of scale in the battery market as South Africa is already the sixth largest residential storage market with an additional 1.3GW of utility-scale storage set to be contracted this year. These advances for battery-storage technology lay to rest the myth that renewables can’t provide baseload power.

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/03/14/south-africa-issues-tender-for-513-mw-2052-mwh-battery-storage-spread-across-5-sites/

Hopefully the link will work for you beginerman. The link shows the project plan schedule and the commissioning part of it which should have begun 3/3/22 (coincidently).

https://www.elidz.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ELIDZ-Bushveld-Tender-Drawings-Final-Rev-0.pdf

425 Pre-Commissioning 2 wks Thu 030322 Wed 160322 0%
426 Cold Commissioning 2 wks Thu 170322 Thu 310322 0%
427 Cold Commissioning Test Complete (Clause 8.2.1) 0 days Thu 310322 Thu 310322 0%
428 Hot Commissioning 2 wks Fri 010422 Thu 140422 0%
429 Functional Test 2 wks Tue 190422 Wed 040522 0%
430 Reliability Tests 4 wks Thu 050522 Wed 010622 0%
431 Continuos Performance Test 6 wks Mon 060622 Mon 180722 0%
432 Hand Over to Client 1 day Tue 190722 Tue 190722 0

Not sure anyone here would know the contents of a contract between BMN and the contractor.

I would have to assume if it's at the cold commissioning stage that there shouldn't be any additional costs to build or design the plant. I though they had said there is no more capital expenditure required over the next year which I would hope would mean that the costs of the electrolyte plant are covered by all monies already/spent or set aside.

https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/bushveld_minerals/news/rns/story/r77381r

There was this paragraph in the Mustang Energy RNS from 28/11/22 They currently have until 31st March but that could presumably extended again.

http://www.mustangplc.com/announcements/28112022%20Acquisition%20of%20additional%20interest%20in%20VRFB%20Holdings%20Limited.pdf

"The 2021 Noteholders and BMN (as the holders of the 2021 CLNs and the 2022 CLNs respectively) and the parties to the Investment Agreement have agreed to extend the Maturity Date until 31 March 2023 (the "Extended Maturity Date") to allow for the finalisation of a prospectus and review process of that prospectus by the Financial Conduct Authority in connection with Readmission, a process that is well underway."

https://www.energy-storage.news/battery-storage-insurance-costs-are-falling-as-understanding-of-risks-grows/

https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/bushveld_minerals/news/rns/story/x5zlolx

Bushveld Minerals Limited (AIM: BMN), the integrated primary vanadium producer and energy storage solutions provider, notes the recent media report, published in South Africa on 19 February, which referred to the commissioning of the Bushveld Electrolyte Company ('BELCO'), South Africa's first vanadium electrolyte factory, having started and the hope to produce 1 million litres of vanadium electrolyte this year.

The Company would like to clarify that whilst cold commissioning of the electrolyte manufacturing facility has commenced, hot commissioning and production is, as previously advised, due to be completed in H1 2023. Further, whilst progress is being made in the qualification process with manufacturers to use its electrolyte, the Company is not providing any production guidance, at the current time, as production will be informed by sales and off-take contracts with Original Equipment Manufacturers, discussions of which are ongoing.

They'll be able to put the saving towards the leccy bill :)

Thanks paludina, a potentially large saving for a while until economies pick up again

Not sure how many containers we send out over a year but a saving is a saving.

https://www.ft.com/content/d739cd47-e434-43c3-9b4e-472bcef4abaf

This month it cost $1,444 to ship a standard 40ft steel container from eastern China to the US west coast at short notice, according to shipping data specialist Xeneta, down from a peak of $9,682 in March last year.

Found this in the following;

https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/VSUN-Energy-Presentation-November-2019.pdf

Vanadium electrolyte contains 145g of high-purity V2O5 per litre.

and

1GWh of new vanadium energy storage technologies needing around 10,000 tonnes of high-purity V2O5

https://www.bushveldminerals.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Bushveld-minerals-BMN-LN-Record-production-achieved-in-trying-circumstances.pdf

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1004775/today-s-market-view-andrada-mining-aura-energy-bushveld-minerals-and-more-1004775.html

"A continued focus on operating and cost efficiencies will be largely driven by the further growth in throughput as the company targets a sustainable production run rate of 5 000 t to 5 400 t over the near term, as well as continued focus on efficiencies and cost saving initiatives," the company highlights.

Two key projects for the group are the hybrid minigrid it is implementing at Vametco and the construction of the Bushveld Electrolyte Company (Belco) plant, which is expected to begin operations in the first half of this year.

"The commissioning of the electrolyte manufacturing plant will be a major achievement underpinning the group's vertical integration strategy and opening up a new market for our products," Bushveld says.

Capex for Belco for 2023 is set at $2.3-million to $2.4-million.

Belco is 55%-owned by Bushveld Energy and 45% by the Industrial Development Corporation and the plant, in the Eastern Cape, was designed to produce about eight-million litres of vanadium electrolyte a year.

Belco is undergoing a qualification process with several vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) manufacturers to use its electrolyte.

VRFBs are used for energy storage.

https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/bushveld-delivers-record-production-despite-loadshedding-electrolyte-plant-construction-on-track-2023-01-31

Integrated primary vanadium producer and energy storage solutions provider Bushveld Minerals produced a record 3 842 t of vanadium in the 12 months to December 31 and has set its production guidance for this year at between 4 200 t and 4 500 t of vanadium.

Although production in 2022 was higher than the 3 592 t produced in 2021, output was slightly below the company's revised guidance range of 3 900 t to 4 100 t as loadshedding resulted in about 200 t of lost production at Bushveld's Vanchem processing facility, in Mpumalanga.

Vanchem produced 1 237 t of vanadium in 2022, compared with 1 138 t the year before. Production was impacted on by lower recoveries as a result of Kiln 1's refractory reaching the end of life during the first half of 2022, a slower-than-expected ramp up of Kiln 3 in the first half of the year and electricity loadshedding which negatively impacted on the ramp-up of production at Kiln 3 in the second half of the year.

Bushveld points out that Vanchem and the Emalahleni municipality had, in November last year, agreed a load curtailment solution, aimed at preventing the plant from experiencing total power loss during scheduled loadshedding.

"While we still envisage some impact, it should reduce the effect and enable Vanchem to continue to ramp up towards steady-state production. The company continues to engage other parties, including Eskom, to seek a longer-term solution.

"Furthermore, similar to the Vametco hybrid-minigrid, we are developing battery storage plus renewable energy solutions to supplement the power requirements of Vanchem," the company adds.

It notes that Vanchem's production for 2023 should be higher than in 2022, but cautions that the exact production figures will depend on the consistency of power supply.

Meanwhile, Bushveld's Vametco mine and processing plant, in North West, produced 2 705 t of vanadium in 2022 – exceeding the upper end of guidance of 2 550 t to 2 650 t.

The company expects Vametco's production for 2023 to be in line with that of 2022.

"I am pleased to report a year of production growth and completion of significant capital projects at Bushveld Minerals, despite external challenges related to electricity availability and supply chains," comments Bushveld CEO Fortune Mojapelo.

"On the capital investment front, in 2022 we completed Vanchem's Kiln 3 refurbishment. Importantly, as a result of completion of this project, the capital expenditure (capex) budget for 2023 is primarily related to sustaining capital," he adds.

Group capex for 2023 is expected to be between $9.2-million and $9.7-million.

Bushveld is focused on building a sustainable, cash-generative, low-cost production and processing platform to support the needs of the steel, chemical and energy sectors.

"A continued focus on operating and cost e

So do we have orders?

BELCO
Construction of the BELCO electrolyte manufacturing plant is progressing according to plan with a
targeted annual capacity of 8 million litres of vanadium electrolyte. Each litre of vanadium
electrolyte will contain between 82 and 92 grams of vanadium, with the plant using over 1,100
tons of vanadium oxide equivalent at full production. BELCO is undergoing a qualification process
with several VRFB manufactures to use its electrolyte, for upcoming orders. BELCO is 55% owned
by Bushveld Energy, and 45% by the Industrial Development Corporation.

https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/bushveld_minerals/news/rns/story/x5zyylx/export

In the assessment of the FAR RNS today there was a little bit that may be of interest.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1004660/today-s-market-view-atlantic-lithium-celsius-resources-empire-metals-and-more-1004660.html

New demand for Vanadium Electrolyte for VRFB storage batteries appears to be driving Vanadium Pentoxide prices higher with ferrovanadium now trading at a large discount to the V2O5 price.