Integrated Resource Plan 2018

Dear fellow South Africans

re the IRP2018

Nothing has changed since my submissions in 2010. South Africa remains massively short of domestic electricity, water and food.

From an electricity point of view, we still have 40 GW like 20 years ago, but we should have 160 GW. Worldwide growth in electricity, even with Energy Efficiency is 3.6% per annum. That means electricity use should have doubled from 40 GW to 80 in that time, but the population has doubled, so we should be at at least 160 GW.

By our government allowing massive privately funded electricity and water and food growth, in cities, their and our fiscus and tax growth will be accordingly far faster than now. But our government sees constraint and "enclosure" as their means to an end, and so they strangle the economy. Do you feel out of breath? Now you know why!

And see the energy cliff in the 2020's in Slide 15 at https://www.slideshare.net/nazimtiger/power-station-workshop . And you will see the disaster that South Africa is facing.

From a water point of view, in many parts of the country we are making do with 50 litres per person per day, but we should have at least 250 litres per person per day, (including the allowance for industry), to really grow the economy. And we are getting poorer and poorer from a food production and food quality point of view all the time.

Here are my comments from last time. I really don't see the point of commenting again. Government uses my time and resources, free of charge. I don't get thanked, even though I am a very active citizen.

http://saaea.blogspot.com/2010/11/integrated-resource-plan-irp-2010.html

http://www.energy.gov.za/IRP/irp%20files/ORBITAL_RENEWABLE_ENERGY.pdf

And my comments on the NDP also help to inform where we are at.

http://mypowerstation-sa.blogspot.com/2013/09/south-africas-national-development-plan.html

All this research funded my my company.

Regards
David Lipschitz
BSc BSc (Honours) MBA M.Inst.D.
Organising Data, Programming and Bringing Healing

All in the Numbers. David Lipschitz Letter to the Cape Times published Fri 29 Jul 2016

THERE are three political parties: party A, party B and party C.

There are 10 voters. Three people vote for party A, two people vote for party B, one person votes for party C.

Party A wins the vote with 50 percent of the vote, even though only 60 percent of the voters voted. And party C maybe doesn't get enough votes to even get a seat in Parliament.

If the four people who didn't vote, voted for party C, then party C would have got five votes and would have won the elections with 50 percent of the overall vote.

This means that a small party that gets people who are dissatisfied with South Africa's five main parties to vote for it can win the elections.

If you don't vote, you vote for the winner, and you have nothing to complain about.

Note that I won't be voting because I have deregistered as a voter, and I will be representing myself in Parliament, according to the provisions of the Preamble of the South African constitution.

Letter in Cape Times: 3rd February 2016: Aim for Zero Inflation

Letter in yesterday's Cape Times:

Title: Aim for Zero Inflation

Recent letters and articles by economists in the Cape Times and in the business section explain that the only lever that the Reserve Bank has to control inflation is interest rates.

Another lever is controlling banks' reserve margins. Banks are allowed to lend a multiple of the actual funds they have in cash or on deposit or in other investments. Increasing the banks' reserve margins forces banks to slow down their lending and, importantly, does not affect borrowers, especially business borrowers who need money so that they can expand, employ people, etc.

Furthermore, in the South African environment, it is the government which is creating most of the inflation with its very high price increases. Think electricity, water, rates, petrol, diesel, transport, sewerage, waste, taxes, red tape, etc, which all push up inflation, yet aren't caused by the consumer. These inflation pressures are caused by the government wanting to do everything itself, rather than by a government creating an enabling environment for business to do business. The Reserve Bank can maintain its independence by criticising government spending!

And yet another lever is for the Reserve Bank not to print money for the government to spend on things such as over-inflated budgets, corruption and unnecessary expenditure. If the Reserve Bank stopped printing money then inflation would slow down, and we might even have deflation, supposedly a "bad" thing, but actually a good thing as our money in the bank and our earnings become more and more valuable, rather than less and less valuable.

Two more tiny points: One is that the Reserve Bank controls the definition of inflation and every now and then it changes what is in "the inflation basket". The Reserve Bank should ignore the effect of government-induced inflation! And, secondly, the Reserve Bank sets the upper limit on what it deems to be "prudent inflation". At the moment the upper limit is 6 percent. Nowhere have I read that the Reserve Bank sees inflation as a "bad" thing and wants to reduce inflation, or that the upper limit should be increased to 8 percent. In fact, the Reserve Bank has a range of "good" inflation, ie between 2 and 6 percent.

The Reserve Bank should state that it wants to reduce inflation to zero percent. Then things won't increase in price any more and our costs will actually start going down!

Social Capital in an African Energy System

My second presentation at the SAEE (South African Energy Efficiency) Conference

12 November 2015

In order to have growth we need infrastructure, "base load" and very big power stations. But finding trained staff for coal and nuclear power stations, for their build, operation and maintenance is proving difficult.

Staffing the roof-top Solar Revolution in (South) Africa

"Staffing the roof-top solar revolution in (South) Africa"

South Africa and Africa’s educational level and system lends itself to a Renewable Energy powered electrical system. We don’t have the time or resources to build coal or nuclear plants anymore. So what are we waiting for, and why are we wasting time on out of date technology that we cannot support and where local people will not be employed?

http://www.sabreakingnews.co.za/2015/09/15/staffing-the-roof-top-solar-revolution/

Nuclear questions South Africans should ask their government

Article that appeared in SA Breaking News on August 21st.

The South African government wants nuclear power. They won’t be here to see it implemented, so is it fair?

Nuclear Power for South Africa?

The picture above is from the Green Print Nuclear is Cool Poster published in Schools by the South African government in 2009.

Nuclear Power for South Africa: 9.6 GW, ie 9,600,000,000 Watts.

R1 Trillion: R1,000,000,000,000 capital expenditure.

R104 per watt! Photovoltaic Systems with batteries are about R35 per watt.

To repay R1 trillion? R10 Billion: R10,000,000,000 per month repayments over 20 years at 10%.

4 million tax payers in South Africa, but 5% of the taxpayers pay 50% of the tax.

So if you happen to be one of these 5%, you are one of 200,000 people who need to pay R5,000,000,000 per month.

Which is R25,000 per month!

Something to look forward to in 10 years time? Without even getting electricity, and like Medupi and Kusile with no guarantee that the electricity will be available!

There and the other 3,800,000 people pay R1,315 per month.

And that's what the rich (another word for taxpayers) are being asked to do in South Africa, for "clean, reliable, environmentally" nuclear electricity.

Coal would be about R300,000.000,000 for the 9.6 GW, which is about R35 per Watt. But you still need 5,200 tons of coal per hour to run 9.6 GW of coal power stations!

And as you know coal and nuclear power stations don't run 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They need maintenance, shutdowns, refuelling, etc. And sometimes they just break.

What to do about it?

Call me, or book me, and I'll show you another way of thinking.

Is censorship possible or even a good idea in an adult world?

Some weekend reading ... And an action that you must take if you want to continue to use the Internet.

Please sign this petition.

There are 11 million people on Facebook in South Africa and only 24,446 people have signed this petition. I wonder how the 11 million people will feel when they can't use the internet anymore? I wonder how Facebook and Google and Amazon will feel when they can't advertise to their loyal customers anymore and when they can't provide the important SAAS (Software As a Service) services that many of us pay for?

IMHO, the police are far better off leaving the internet as it is, open, and so they can actually monitor it. Once it is closed, it will also be closed to them!

I am currently moving all my web sites and BLOGs out of South Africa, mainly because South Africa's internet services are deteriorating so much, but also because most of my clients are actually outside South Africa and for other reasons explained below.

I also have a number of contractors outside South Africa already who are doing amazing work for me. Why do this? It is just so difficult to get rid of shoddy people in South Africa. And these people have the same chance as the overseas people to list themselves on UpWork, etc, but they just aren't there. People like me want to do everything on the internet. If you aren't publishing yourself and making yourself available on the internet, you are probably a loser in a 21st Century Prosumer World.

One of my contractors is in the Ukraine and another is in the Philippines.

This legislation is yet more South African government bureaucracy and inefficiency and expense which is killing jobs. A pity really as the local companies will lose out and the overseas companies are much cheaper, and in many cases, free!

Besides which, if there is internet censorship in South Africa, then there will be thousands of job losses in any case.

Not sure if you know but there is already a private wireless internet springing up as more and more people move off Telkom etc. As more and more people join this network, it will have multiple satellite dishes and it will not be able to be policed.

With digital TV coming, I will also not be upgrading and will rather use satellite communications and Netflix. More money lost to the SA fiscus as I won't need a TV license, and I won't watch any local programs, so even more jobs lost.

Stupid really of this government to think they can control the very people who are paying their salaries, and especially in an internet age where there are so many alternatives. THE DARK AGES WILL NOT RETURN.

Homeowners and Communities can viably make our own electricity and drinking water already and Urban Farms already produce 20% of the world's food, grown in cities.

All secrecy and repression of information laws are all preludes to fascism, so we must fight these UNJUST LAWS with all the CIVIL LIBERTIES we have, before we have none, and it will be entirely our own fault, for just not being involved.

SANEA: The Eskom War Room 22nd July 2015

The Eskom War Room in the office of the Presidency of the Government of South Africa. Talk given by Ashraf Karim, who works for the National Planning Commission (NPC). The talk was at the UCT Business School.

Could the Greek electricity crisis be due to a shortage of electricity?

Written by me on 1 July 2012, 3 years ago.

Could a shortage of electricity have led to the Greek crisis, besides the financial shenanigans?

So what's really happening?

South Africa doesn't have enough electricity. Similar to Greece, Syria, Spain, some of the more than 40 countries worldwide whose energy imports either exceed their total exports or are more than 60% of their total exports.

South Africa doesn't have enough electricity.

Our capacity is around 35 GigaWatts, and was around 38 GW 20 years ago. Plus peaking power stations taking us to around 38 GW today. At 3.6% average electricity growth worldwide in the past 20 years, South Africa should be at 80 GW today and in 20 years time should be at 160 GW.

To "solve" the problem, the South African government has had to be very inventive. Especially whilst giving another 2 million people electricity since 1994. It has closed the textile industry, moving almost this entire industry to China. It has closed several smelters, hence the reason South Africa's iron and steel exports have plummeted. It blames our problems on China, but China adds 1 GW to its grid weekly and for the first time will install the biggest share of renewable energy worldwide this year.

The South African government needs to limit growth, otherwise the citizen (voter) will find out there is a problem. So the government does this with laws that limit growth or which limit the ability of small companies to employ people or which limit the second hand market from selling goods. Examples? The Consumer Protection Act which protects big business whilst preventing small business from doing business; The new Labour Legislation which has outlawed companies from employing casual staff thus preventing small companies from trying out people before giving them permanent employment. If a big company employs a person who doesn't work out, its not really a problem if the company already has 200 people. But when a small company with 2 people wants to employ a third person, its a massive investment. And in order to buy second hand goods at a market, a customer needs to show their ID book!! When last did you show your ID at Pick 'n Pay or Woolworths or Tafelberg?

Wanting to outlaw labour brokers who help people get jobs is another example.

And there are others.

All because South Africa doesn't have enough electricity.

And the way South Africa will solve this problem is to borrow R2,300,000,000,000 (R2.3 trillion) and the only way South Africa can repay this vaste amount of money is to give away the Karoo, ie allow it to be fracked; to prevent South Africa from having its very own car, the Joule, and in other ways.

But citizens can take back their rights by taking responsibility for themselves. And thus reduce their costs by up to 70% from 2012 prices. Its so simple, that people just can't see it, as they've bought into the Fossilized fuel energy Mythology.

Where to today? That is up to us!

Battery related questions in a backup system which can be used during Load Shedding in South Africa

Here is an answer I just posted on Facebook: "Have I been given the wrong info? I hear that the battery replacement cycle is rather short and therefore costly."

Hi Pat.

If you buy the 100 or 105AH "Solar Storage" batteries that look like car batteries, but which are called "Solar Storage", they will last about 2 years and then even though they say that are "sealed" I had 8 of these batteries and managed to refill them after two years to that they lasted 4 years. But their performance wasn't great.

18 months ago I upgraded to "Deep Cycle" batteries, 260 AH 12 Volt SonX batteries. The 4 SonX cost about R20,000 instead of the first set which cost about R12,000. But they are firstly 520 AH at 24 Volts instead of 420 AH at 24 Volts and secondly their performance is excellent. They last a lot longer than the original batteries.

And then the specification says they should last 7 years, but I'm hoping they will last longer than this, but even 7 years will be excellent. Note that in a battery system design, one should design the system to not use more than 30% of the battery capacity on a regular (daily) basis and only use 50% on a very irregular basis. This way the batteries are looked after and will last the specified time.

Having said all this, the inverters should last 12 years and the most of the photovoltaic (PV) panels are guaranteed for 30 years, with the PV panels performance deteriorating to 90% of their rated capacity after 12 years and to 80% of their rated capacity after 30 years.

So relative to inverters and PV panels, batteries don't last as long and therefore need to be replaced more often and therefore are relatively more expensive. But the benefits they give you far exceed their costs, in my opinion.

One should also note that if you have a "battery system", you need more components than on a "grid tie system" without batteries and therefore a system with a battery costs more than just adding the additional battery bank. And there is more maintenance on a battery system although the systems can be programmed to look after themselves and send warning system messages or emails or sms's if there is a problem.

Set 1: Price R12,500: Lasted 2 years. The second 2 years battery performance was really poor. Equals R6,250 per annum.

Set 2: R20,000: Should last 7 years: R2857 per annum.

These calculations exclude interest and the Cost of Capital, but I think the point is made.

Cape Times Letter: 22nd December 2014: Make A Difference

I refer to my letter on November 6 in the Cape Times: "Delivery of power solution needed, but not at huge cost and long waiting period".

Many people disbelieve what I am saying, that it is possible for millions of homeowners and small business owners to work together in groups called embedded microgrids, to create baseload electricity for the grid in the 21st Century.

Well, here is one of the word's biggest companies, Alstom, saying the same thing:

http://microgridknowledge.com/a-constellation-of-microgrids/

It's time for the general public to believe that we can make a difference and perhaps next year we will start powering the South African electricity grid and helping Eskom and the Department of Energy with the massive task they have to kick-start the South African economy.

Crank up old machine for new tricks

My first ever Comment on the Insight page of a newspaper.

We are all very excited here in Milnerton. Thank you to everyone for your support and to the Cape Times for publishing my letters over the past 6 years since I started writing about electricity. I feel like I just got my degree in journalism after more than 6,000 hours invested and very many conferences, reports, newspaper articles, magazine articles, discussions, forums, debates, presentations to parliament, meetings with political leaders, my friends at the Milnerton Proper Residents Association and the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance, etc.

I'd especially like to thank my Facebook community friends for your ongoing support on this particular forum. Being an Active Citizen is often very lonely, but you guys and girls always show up with your "likes" and the many comments, critical sometimes, but always appreciated, and your ongoing support.

Thank you to everyone. You are always in my prayers.

Click on the picture above to read the article.

South Africa's Energy Future. 2013-10-15

Please feel free to submit this to your local newspapers and communities.

Dear Editor

Should we (South Africa) be investing in Nuclear and Shale Gas? Is Renewable Energy ok for base load? ie can it keep our industry running?

Difficult questions, hopefully this essay will go some way to answering them.

Government wants to implement 9.6 GW of Nuclear. Koeberg is rated at 1.8 GW, so that is another 10 reactors.

Government says that nuclear will cost R400 billion, but the latest reactor that went online in France shows that the price is likely to be closer to R1.4 trillion and that the build phase is a lot longer than anticipated. Imagine if you wanted to buy an airconditioner and the supplier said it would cost somewhere between R5,000 and R50,000 and would take somewhere between 4 weeks and 12 weeks to install. Would you be happy?

In order for Nuclear to be "viable" it has to cost R400 billion and run at full production 7 days a week except for refuelling which happens every 18 months and takes the reactor down for 3 to 6 weeks! About a quarter to a third of the fuel is refuelled each time. And then there is the issue of the "waste". So assuming no faults, the reactor is up for 92% of the time!

Plus in a "Base Load Power" station system, the optimal environment says there should be 15% spare capacity running at all times! This is just in case something breaks. So Base Load isn't really continuous. It just looks that way. There are a number of hidden costs.

Also regarding Nuclear, there is no insurance. So your homeowner insurance policy specifically excludes nuclear radiation. And only government can build Nuclear, as no bank will finance a Nuclear Power Station. Surely this should be telling us something about Nuclear Power?

Regarding Wind, we (South Africa) can install 28.8 GW (3 times 9.6 GW) at around R400 billion. And wind runs with a capacity factor of around 30%, ie it runs about 1/3rd of the time. So for the same price as the nuclear we have "24 hour wind." And one can tell if the wind will be blowing at 3pm tomorrow afternoon. It is difficult to know if our power stations will be running at 3pm tomorrow afternoon.

Also wind is "local" which means less strain on the grid and less chance of a catastrophic failure, eg if some of the grid goes down or if terrorists blow up South Africa's main switching station at De Aar, the Western Cape will be without electricity. Koeberg currently provides under 40% of Cape Town's power and most of it is already reserved for the big users. Eg when we had Load Shedding, Sacks Circle in Bellville still had electricity!

Another thing is that CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) with Storage is already cheaper than Nuclear and in Spain, the leader in this technology, and with the same sun hours as South Africa in their Southern Region, their CSP plants with Storage are running 16 hours a day, eg 6 am till 10pm, which would cover our peaks. Note that Namibia should be investing in these CSP with Storage Plants and should be suppling South Africa.

Also there is 7 GW potential pumped storage in Lesotho and South Africa should be helping Lesotho build these "batteries" which are needed in a Renewable Energy system. When we have excess power, we pump the water up the hill. When we need power, we let the water run down the hill making electricity. This is how our Steenbras Pumped Storage system works. Water is pumped up using off-peak electricity and then allowed to run down at peak time, or when there is a sudden demand on the grid and the "base load" isn't running fast enough to keep up.

If we get clever and implement PV (Photovoltaic Systems) with Demand Response and Time of Use Tariffs and Net Metering at the homeowner level we also reduce the strain on the grid and our costs will be dramatically less. A homeowner in the City of Cape Town currently spending R1,900 per month can install a PV system and spend R1,600 per month (assuming their roof is big enough). Finance and leasing schemes are already available in South Africa for these homeowners. And if they don't have enough roof space, communities can get together and build their own Community Solar Ground Mounted Systems. Note that remote off-grid "poor" people currently spend R4 per kWh to run their diesel generators. If they supplemented this with PV and other Smart Technologies, they would spend closer to R1.50 per kWh. But government thinks its better for these people to move to the cities and live in slums!

Our government thinks they will lose electricity revenue by allowing Small Scale Solar, but actually they would prefer to spend unknown amounts of Billions (Actually the budget is R2 trillion for South African electricity spend over the next 20 years) and wait unknown amounts of time for electricity. In the meantime our economy runs at 1% growth and we need 5% growth for at least 5 years for job creation. And we can grow at 10%, except we don't have enough electricity! The National Planning Commission Report says that 11 million more people must be employed by 2030. They won't have employment if we don't have electricity.

R2 trillion is R2,000,000,000,000! R40,000 for every man, woman and child in South Africa! Or divided by our 2.3 million tax payers it is R869,565 per tax payer!! ie each tax payer has to pay R9,000 per month just to pay for our new power stations!! No wonder electricity prices are going up so fast!!

And Eskom and the Cities believe they will lose revenue if they allow Net Metering without a Service Fee, but the Californian Utility CPUC has done research that shows that the added cost is only 1/2 a South African cent per kWh. And every South African is already paying government a levy of 3.5 cents per kWh, more than covering the Net Metering "cost".

And Kusile and Medupi will be commissioned just in time towards the end of the 2010's, for other old power stations to be switched off (decommissioned). These power stations are already at end of life, but their lives have been extended at huge cost. We will commission 9.6 GW of Coal and then switch off about 10 GW of power stations in the early 2020's. So actually we won't be better off!!!! This according to the IRP (Integrated Resource Plan). Note that the risk table was in the IRP 2010 Draft 8 of 8th October 2010, table 37. It has unfortunately been removed from the current version!! The current version of the document is also in a dramatically different format to that of October 2010 making it very difficult for the public and government officials to see what changes the Department of Energy and their Consultants have made and to stay on top of things. Government also did this with the National Planning Commission report. The final document is in a different format and order to the draft!

Note that the IRP of 2010 gives Wind a 2 out of 12 risk rating and nuclear a 10 out of 12 risk rating. Nuclear is five times more risky than wind. This according to the Government's own research. Yet the government wants to implement Nuclear. I think one can see why they have left this information out of the final document!

Many people don't understand that Shale Gas requires Hydraulic Fracturing (massive explosions with millions of liters of water and 700 chemicals at great depths and pressures underground) which is known as Fracking! This first link is from the Oil companies showing what is possible. But this second video shows what is really happening any why many countries are keeping fracking out of their countries and natural, unspoilt, environments.

There is also methane in mines which should be extracted and burnt (Flared, or preferably turned into heat to run a power station) as methane is 20 times more damaging to the environment than Carbon Dioxide. I think around 10 years ago Goldfields wanted to build a 600 MW power station using their mine methane and the government said no! They could have run part of their mines with this power. And as you know, South Africa ran out of electricity in 2008. Goldfield's power station would have been useful. Note that in the late 1990's Eskom predicted that this load shedding would happen. But government took the money that should have been invested in the Smart Grid and spent it elsewhere. More short term thinking at the expense of long term growth.

Lastly, the Western World is changing to Sustainable Energy and their Engineering and Science growth is growing in leaps and bounds, whilst African scientific progress is being stunted! PV and Grid Tie Inverters use Electronics which are getting cheaper all the time. There is also computerisation in Smart Grids which is reducing costs. So why do we want to follow them and constantly be 25 years behind them? At the moment, we are allowing their Nuclear and Coal Developers to sell us out of date technology so that these Developers can stay in business and so that Africa can stay behind the curve - and poor.

This is truly a bad state of affairs. Until we decide that we've had enough and that we want to be on top of our game we will continue to languish with out of date equipment which is expensive, environmentally destructive and where the profits leave our country rather than staying in our country. It is possible to build Photovoltaic systems with Electricians and even with people who have 3 weeks of training (and writing an exam) in setting up these systems, yet the City of Cape Town says that an Electrical Engineer needs to be involved in designing these Systems! How stupid can you get? Unless of course you want to keep South Africa growing at 1% so that more than half the population get Grants and so that they continue voting for the government to keep their grants. The rest of the population are rapidly being employed by the government (44,000 in the past 3 months) and guess who they will vote for. The only way a Centrist, Communist based government can sustain the massive hand-outs required, whilst at the same time receiving less and less direct tax, is by mining. And the most obvious place for this mining for our government is in the Karoo, Shale Gas. This is called the Resource Curse. We should avoid it.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Community Power Station Expert

David Lipschitz on Net Metering 2012-02-22

Attention Messrs Achim Steiner, Adnan Amin and Kandeh Yumkella

Your article in the Business Day is incredibly timeous as this past week I have reinvigorated my campaign regarding Net Metering.

South Africa is in a recession largely because of lack of electricity supply. This can easily and cost effectively be resolved by allowing Net Metering. By July this year, private citizens in Cape Town will be able to make their own electricity cheaper than we can buy it. And I have financial numbers which show that larger companies can already make their own electricity cheaper than they can buy it.

With Net Metering, users of electricity can buy and sell electricity at the same price. For example, if I produce 1 KW and need 2 KW, then I buy 1 KW from the Grid. Effectively, my meter is going slower than normal. And if I produce 2 KW and need 1 KW then I export electricity to the grid and my meter goes backwards at the same speed it goes forwards. This only happens with people who pay for their electricity in arrears and who have the old fashioned disk meters which look like small metal CDs. Prepaid meters either stop working, stop turning, or go forwards when one is exporting to the grid!

The South African Bureau of Standards created a document called NRS 097-2-1:2010 which was adopted by NERSA, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, in 2011. The technical term for this Grid Integration, Reverse Feed and Net Metering is "Grid Interconnection of Embedded Generation."

It allows for Grid Tie systems up to 100 KW, an artificial limit. I have two clients who are considering buying large roof top net metering systems: one at 700 KW and one at 500 KW. I also have numerous smaller potential clients who want to use Net Metering and know of a number of people who are already reverse feeding the grid. The grid doesn't see them and they are having very little effect. Their excess electricity is simply used by the neighbour.

Eskom and The Cities, including the so called advanced city of Cape Town and the Western Cape's Provincial Administration (PAWC), have not adopted the "Embedded Generation" policies. The three main reasons given are:

1. The Grid Tie inverter might reverse feed the grid when the grid is switched off, eg for maintenance, and an electrician working on the line might get electrocuted;
2. Eskom and the Cities will lose revenue;
3. The grid might become destabilised.

1 was resolved in 1999 with the American UL 1741 standard which was harmonized with IEEE 1547. Any inverter which is listed to the UL 1741 standard may be connected to a utility grid without the need for additional anti-islanding equipment, anywhere in the United States or other countries where UL standards are accepted. A similar acceptance of the IEEE 1547 is happening in Europe. An island is a grid which can run internally, for example inside a building, without exporting electricity to the main grid. Many companies in South Africa already have Generators and when there is Load Shedding, ie enforced power failures because the demand is either too high or the supply too low, these systems "Island" the Generator and its "clients" until the Grid is restored and then there is a process of disconnecting the Island and reconnecting the Grid. These processes happen seamlessly and are installed by Electrical Engineers.

2 would be solved if government would see out of their silos. The opportunities are great if Citizens of the City of Cape Town and other cities could get the government, which owns Eskom, and the Cities to see out of their silos. I believe that the City of Cape Town gets 60% of its Revenue from Electricity Sales and the 150% increase in electricity over the past 5 years has increased this percentage from 40%. The fastest way to get renewable energy adopted is to allow private people and business owners with the required roof space to cover their roofs in Photovoltaic Systems. This will create jobs, reduce unemployment, reduce crime, increase lighting and electricity in Africa, give security of supply, fewer power failures, less chance of load shedding, and help move us away from polluting power stations. In places like Germany, California and China, the more renewable energy that is installed, the faster the economy grows. This is because the bigger base load power would then be available for the organisations needing the bigger loads, for example shopping centres, new housing developments, miners, smelters and other large users of electricity. And more importantly businesses know their electricity price for decades and can plan accordingly; and businesses get security of supply and fewer disruptions caused by electrical systems failure.

3 is a red herring. I understand that Turkey has found that wind farms up to 500 KW actually stabilise the grid. And in South Africa the two new 4.8 GW power stations will massively destabilise the grid when they are switched on and switched off. Switching on or off 1 KW or 500 KW is tiny compared with 4.8 GW, ie 4,800,000 KW. And if South Africa loses the main power lines from Mpumalanga to the Cape, for example in a storm or terrorist activity, then Cape Town could quickly be without 60% of its electricity supply as only 40% of Cape Town's electricity supply comes from our local Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.

I should say that large users of Renewable Energy such as Germany and Belgium notice problems on their grids when the Renewable Energy component reaches 20% of electricity supply, but it has taken these countries 20 years to get to this point, and with Feed In Tariffs. I think South Africa can do it in 10 years, and by then Germany and Belgium will have solved their problems and South Africa will be able to follow their lead. Breaking news: Germany is solving this grid destabilisation problem!!

I would very much like to help you in any way I can. In November 2008, the South African government announced that Feed In Tariffs (FITs) would be in place by March 2009. My company and hundreds of others decided to get ready for this momentous day. Unfortunately this didn't happen. There were FITs but no Power Purchase Agreement. Since approximately 2009, there has been a 2 cent levy (see what it was meant to be for!) on all electricity sold in place to pay for the FITs and my understanding is that there is R15 billion in this fund already. Be that as it may, we don't need FITs in South Africa anymore. We just need the implementation of Net Metering. Interestingly the Standard allows for Time Of Use Tariffs which would incentivise people to install battery systems to supply electricity at peak time whilst producing or buying electricity at off peak time.

And the R15 billion could be used on a first come first served basis to allow private people to install renewable energy systems before VAT and before tax. Businesses can already do this. See http://mypowerstation.co.za/2011/11/26/my-power-station-press-release-26th-november-2011-david-lipschitzs-renewable-energy-jobs-plan/  for more ideas along this theme.

Hence there would be zero drain on the fiscus and massive job and GDP creation on a Continent that will have the biggest consumer base in the world in the next 20 years. We can either supply our own needs or export our electricity requirements to China and the other Asian Tigers who are massively ramping up electricity production and who will end up making everything we need, but who will then end up owning Africa, as large creditors usually end up owning their customers when the customer cannot pay the bill.

The positive possibilities of Net Metering in Africa's biggest economy and in the rest of Africa are mind blowing. Let's work together to make a difference.

I look forward to your reply and to helping make Renewable Energy a reality in South Africa and on the African Continent.

Net Metering: selling at the same price you pay

It is now more apparent to me than ever before that South Africans must push for Net Metering as the answer to our energy provision problems. Waiting for the first FITs to appear in 2016 is way to long!

See Engineering News Article.

For more on Net Metering see Engineering News Article.

IRP2010 Deadline Dates Extended

Dear Stakeholder,

Kindly note that due to numerous requests from stakeholders, coupled with the Department of Energy's commitment to ensuring thorough engagement on the Draft IRP2010, we have decided to extend the original thirty (30) day period for submission of written comments from the public, by a further thirty (30) days.

This means that the new deadline for submission of written comments on the Draft IRP2010 is 10 December 2010. Please still ensure that you send your comments (in the prescribed format) by this time to IRP2010@mweb.co.za

Kindly also note that due to the nature and volume of requests we have been receiving for slots to present at the Public Hearings, we have decided to set aside a total of four (4) days for Public Hearings, across three (3) regions as follows:

1. 26 November 2010 - Durban
2. 29 November 2010 - Cape Town
3. 02 and 03 December 2010 - Johannesburg

Kindly indicate to us the following:

1. Which Public Hearing you will be attending;
2. The number of attendees from your respective organisation that will be attending;
3. If you have been allocated a slot to present by Ms Angelique Kilian, please indicate which region you intend presenting to Ms Angelique Kilian at IRP2010@mweb.co.za by close of business on
01 November 2010.
4. All final presentations to be presented must be emailed to IRP2010 by 19 November 2010.

Kindly note that you will be advised of the actual venues per region, in due course.

We thank you for your valued participation and interest in the development of our Draft IRP2010.

Kind regards,

Angelique Kilian
PROJECT MANAGER

Government caught out

See http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/solar-park-not-out-in-the-cold-government-insists-2010-10-18

This just shows what the government is saying in the media (propaganda and window dressing) vs what they strategically think. It's about time that this misalignment is brought out into the open.

Does anyone know what R100 Billion is?

R100 Billion is R100,000,000,000 or 1 with 11 zeros after it or 10^11 in scientific notation.

Can you picture 100,000,000,000 centimeters?

What is 100,000,000,000 centimeters?

The distance to the moon is 384,403 km which is 384,403,000 metres which is 38,440,300,000 cms which is 38 billion which is still less than 100 billion!! So 100 billion centimeters is about 3 times the distance from the earth to the moon in centimeters.

We are continuously told by government that there's no money, but if we think differently we will suddenly find we have ample money.

The South African government spent R7 billion on consultants last year to mainly write reports which are never going to be used or implemented. The R7 billion could have bought 700,000 R10,000 Solar Water Heaters. The R7 billion could have paid proper teachers salaries.

One way to find the money is to use the R100 billion for the Medupi power station in a different way. Stop the Medupi new power station development, pay the fines, and use the remaining R70 billion (my guess) for R30 billion of Solar Water Heaters (20GW of energy instead of 5GW of energy), R7 Billion for the teachers, and "change" for: feed in tariffs; zero VAT on renewable energy products; 30% rebates on all solar water and renewable energy installations; tax credits; R10 billion for training and skills transfer from Germany, Spain, USA, Australia, etc.

I had a meeting with an accountant today and did a presentation about thinking differently and mentioned the R100 billion. He said what can we do & we should concentrate on the "small numbers" that we can do something about. I said what's the turnover of your biggest client? He said R200 million. I said that is 500 times less than what the government is spending (on 1 power station and we need 4 more in 5 to 10 years and another 16 after that!! - if we don't change our thinking) and accountants have a huge amount of education and annual courses, exams, etc. The government employee probably doesn't have this level of financial knowledge. How is it that she can understand a figure 500 times more than he can?

The point is that the citizens of the world pay these huge figures when we really don't need to. The governments of the world have as much money as they need. They just print it. It's called inflation. Let's use some of this money to rectify our mistakes so that we don't need a cost of living anymore - and so that we can have real deflation where our money is worth more each day instead of less each day.

Please visit My Power Station for more information about how you can reduce your personal carbon footprint today. Then please read "David Lipschitz Facebook Campaign to Make South Africa a Better Place" and write to our ministers and get the rules of the game changed. Email addresses are provided in the Facebook article.

Ke Nako
The time is now.
Solar Regards,
David

Eat 1 KG less meat in the next year: Dramatically reduce our Cost of Living

Please go to MyPowerStation on Facebook and Like the page.

Then read what we can do on Info and then go to Discussions and read the discussions. Start with Food Security. Start by committing to eating 1KG less meat (beef, chicken, fish) in the next year. If 49 million people in South Africa eat 1 KG less beef (each) in the next year and eat vegetables or wheat instead, we will save 2,146 billion (2 trillion) litres of water, 367 million litres of petrol and diesel. We will need 213,043 fewer cows. We will start saving the rain-forests.

If we use the soya to feed people, we would feed 30 times more people because 1 hectare of soya feeds 60 people whereas 1 hectare of soya fed to cows and then fed to people only feeds 2 people.

There are some very simple African solutions to our problems. We don't need complex and expensive "Western, First World, medicine" for our problems. According to African tradition, meat was only be eaten on special occasions, eg births, circumcisions, marriages, birthdays, deaths.

As an African, born in South Africa, who left SA to go live in England as I didn't want to fight in the townships in 1987 and who voted in England in 1994 for a new South Africa, and who returned in 1995 to join in the building of this beautiful country, I salute you, and ask that we join together to build our land and reduce our cost of living.