Danie van der Merwe

In the last full week of load-shedding – between 7 June and 13 June – the average contribution of wind generation during peak evening usage stood at 525MW.

In the most recent week of 28 June to 4 July 2021, the figure was more than double that – at 1,272MW. The week before that, wind generation’s contribution averaged at 1,077MW during the evening peak.

Eskom currently has nearly 5,350MW of renewable generation capacity, including more than 2,700MW of installed capacity at independent power producer (IPP) solar plants and 2,600MW of wind generation from both its own Sere project and private sectors farms.

Of course, Cape Town had been using it's local hydropower station to supplement power and thereby usually managed to be a level lower than the rest of the country for load-shedding.

See How Eskom avoided more load-shedding this winter

#technology #renewableenergy #southafrica #eskom #windenergy

This is why Eskom has been able to avoid load-shedding for almost a month, despite continued cold temperatures in the country.

Earlier this week, a company Orbital Marine Power successfully launched its latest tidal turbine. Once it’s connected to the European Marine Energy Centre off the Orkney Islands, the two megawatt O2 will have the capacity to generate enough energy to power 2,000 UK households annually, making it one of the world’s most powerful tidal turbines currently in use.

See The world's 'most powerful' tidal turbine is nearly ready to power on | Engadget

#environment #tidalturbine #renewableenergy #OrbitalO2

Once it’s connected to the European Marine Energy Centre off the Orkney Islands, the two megawatt O2 will have the capacity to generate enough energy to power 2,000 UK households annually..

When accounting for weather extremes, the engineering is there, and improving, too. To operate in cold places like Canada, heating can be applied to some essential components of the turbines, such as the motor and gears.

"Cold climate weatherized wind turbines are not rocket science," explained Vijay Modi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. However, weatherizing turbines adds costs, perhaps less than 10 percent of the price of a new turbine, he said. And during freezing events, some wind energy is then diverted to warming the turbines.

The other interesting fact is that Texas' power generation from wind is actually quite minor, and it's key failure apparently was attributed to the natural gas generation side, yet for some unknown reason renewable energy was getting the blame. It's always best to pause and first check the facts properly.

See Why wind turbines thrive in Antarctica and places way colder than Texas

#environment #USA #windturbine #renewableenergy

"An ingenious technology."

Renewable energy became the biggest source of electricity in the European Union in 2020, beating fossil fuels for the first time. Germany and Spain also hit that milestone individually last year — so did the UK, which officially left the EU in January 2020.

Renewables powered 38 percent of electricity in the EU last year, according to a report released today by energy think tanks Ember and Agora Energiewende. That gives renewable energy a narrow lead over fossil fuel-fired generation, which accounted for 37 percent of Europe’s electricity. The remaining quarter comes from nuclear energy.
Certainly as grid storage and grid transmission technologies improve this will only get better.

See Renewable energy production beat fossil fuels in Europe

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There’s still a lot of work to do.

This is according to a report on the performance of renewable energy projects compiled by energy regulator Nersa.

This news comes as the availability of Eskom’s fleet deteriorated to just over 60% in the last week of November, according to the latest data published by the state-owned utility. This is partly the result of an increase in plant taken offline for maintenance, but unplanned outages remain very high.

Load shedding would clearly have been far worse that South Africans already experienced this year. The good news is more renewal energy generation is coming online, and it comes online a lot quicker and cheaper than other forms of generation ie. think of Medupi power station....

See Load shedding looming again, even as renewables ease Eskom pressure - TechCentral

#environment #renewableenergy #eskom #southafrica #loadshedding

Renewable energy procured from private generators contributed more than a quarter of the peak-time electricity South Africans consumed during the first half of 2020.