Delivery of power solution needed, but not at huge cost and long waiting period

Dear all

Letter in 6th November 2014 Cape times. They called it "Delivery of power solution needed, but not at huge cost and long waiting period."

Regards

David

Dear Editor

Andrew Kenny suggests that nuclear is the answer

​ ("The power facts", Cape Times Letters, November 4)​

. I agree that nuclear has helped us get where we are, and although it has been cheap in the past, there is absolutely no indication that once all external costs are included, it can still be seen to be cheap.

The main problems I have with nuclear are: 1) 

​T​

hat it takes 

​eight​

 to 

​twelve

 years to build nuclear power stations; 2) 

​O

ur grandparents said that their children would know how to deal with nuclear waste and nuclear accidents; 3) 

​E​

very time we build a nuclear power station, it costs much more than the previous one; 4) 

​These

 monsters are incredibly expensive, leading to massive corruption; 5) 

​Because

 the time

​ frames

 are long, we don't know if they are on time or late, hence even more corruption.

The real problem is that we need electricity NOW. Eskom

​, its

 their civil engineering contractors, and 

​its

 other suppliers and staff have shown that they cannot deliver on two coal power stations on time, and they are massively overbudget, causing hardship to at least 2.5 million people who would have jobs now, if that electricity was available.

So why should the people trust Eskom and the government to build another 

​five​

 nuclear power stations

​,​

 each bigger than Koeberg, when we know they will be late, massively overbudget, and that they will not be able to start supplying much needed electricity in the next few weeks?

Not only that

​,​

 but Eskom 

​is

 way behind on maintenance of existing power stations and transmission infrastructure, so if they can't build new power stations

​,​

 and if they can't maintain the existing system, then surely we need a new way of working, and thinking

​.​

With Embedded Generation, be it renewable, small scale coal or other power plants, we have the unique opportunity for the people to power the country for the first time in history. Image the Khayelitsha Power Station or the Milnerton Power Station

​.​

And imagine if these people could provide not only clean, green, sustainable, reliable, electricity, but also clean, green, sustainable, reliable, water at the same time

​.​

Imagine if Khayelitsha and Milnerton could remove their need for the grid from 6am to 10pm every single day and

​,​

 not only this

,​

but provide electricity at peaking time? For the first time in history

​,​

 it is possible that by removing ourselves from the grid, we, the people, can give the utility and

​,​

 more importantly, the country the opportunity to provide the electricity it needs today, 

​and ​

not in 12 years time

​.​

​B

ut Eskom and the Department of Public Enterprises and the Department of Energy just aren't interested in buying electricity from the small person, rather preferring to buy really expensive electricity from nuclear power station engineers and their colleagues, and to wait decades for this electricity to come on stream, thus putting the country at risk of all the ills of even more massive unemployment.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Renewable Energy Examples Offered

Dear all

Letter in 12th November 2014 Cape Times. They called it "Examples Offered" and I wrote it in response to John Walmsley's request for examples and his belief that only Nuclear Power can offer countries, specifcally South Africa, the base load it needs.

Regards

David

Dear Editor

John Walmsley's letter

​, "Offer an alternative" (Cape Times, November 10th),​

 refers.

What us homeowners and roof top owners want to do is supply the grid with electricity, not only during the day, but also at peak time and at night. This is something that the nuclear engineers and their colleagues haven't heard and don't understand.

After all, how is it possible for a homeowner to supply the grid with base-load electricity? Well, thousands or millions of homeowners working together in a distributed energy internet can provide this level of sophistication

​,​

 and the technology and finance is available to make it happen at a huge economic benefit.

The big systems installed in South Africa, by Eskom and the so

​-​

called "independent" power producers, supply large

​-​

scale electricity exactly as Walmsley has described. Erratically. Varyingly. But not unpredictably. They are essentially designed to show South Africans that

​ renewable energy 

does not work, so that nuclear and coal engineers and their suppliers can build old fashioned technologically out of date fossilised systems that others in the world don't want anymore.

Walmsley wants examples. Two that come to mind are Wildpoldsried in Germany and Tsumkwe in Namibia.

In 2011, Wildpoldried was supplying twice as much power as it needs, using 

​solar

 

​panels

, 

​w

ind 

​t

urbines, 

​b

iodigesters

​ -​

 in a farming community

​ -

 with electrolysis systems making hydrogen and methane, and a small 

​c

oal 

​p

ower 

​s

tation. Germany has 40

​ percent 

of the sun of South Africa, therefore the same financial investment in South Africa would yield 2.5 times the amount of electricity.

And because this electricity is localised, the homeowners can decide which day to use their excess electricity and which days to conserve. Eskom, with their large scale wind farms and solar plants cannot do this, an "essential" design flaw in their system, designed to sway the taxpayer to

​ believe 

that the only solution is large scale coal and nuclear power, with huge, but "necessary" environmental and financial costs and risks.

Tsumkwe is an example of an "off-grid micro-grid", which also became operational in 2011. Until 2011, NamPower

​ was​

 supplying diesel to run generators 12 to 14 hours 

​a​

 day, but they had problems with the supply, with frequent breakdowns, inability to get trucks through on 

​sandy ​

desert roads, and other problems. A 200kW off

​-​

g

​

rid system with batteries was installed, plus energy efficiency, plus a special tariff structure, and now the generators only need to run 

​three

 hours 

​a

 day, yet the town has electricity 24 hours per day.

The cost saving is initially 25

​ percent

 and will grow as diesel and other costs increase

​,​

 and solar electric costs keep coming down.

When we change the way we think, the answers will be obvious.

How do we change our minds? That is the question. And they only answer I have to constantly ask questions, to constantly find out what other communities around the world are doing

​,​

 and to constantly discuss the options we have.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Let us all benefit

Dear all

Letter in Wednesday 19th November 2014 Cape Times. They called it "Let us all benefit".

Regards

David

Dear Editor

John Walmsley's letter

​: "Please do the math" (Cape Times, November 18), refers.

Assuming 10 million houses with an average of 3 kW systems, we get 30 GW of 

​s

olar 

​power,

 about 136

​ percent

 of the electricity available most of the time on our national grid today.

If we include all the other rooftops

​,​

 we get substantially more than this.

I believe that homeowners and SMMEs can eliminate the need for the national grid and/or supply the grid with electricity between 6am and 10pm and make use of the grid between 10pm and 6am, with many of the same incentives that Eskom give to their big users.

​ ​

In order to do this we need to be able to install systems before VAT and before tax. We need time of use tariffs, demand response and we need to be able to do net metering without a service fee. And we need to be able to purchase electric vehicles without the 100

​ percent

 import duty currently imposed. Most of these things are available to large scale electricity suppliers and users. Why not make them available to homeowners so that everyone can benefit?

Why is it ok for the electricity generators and their existing coal and nuclear suppliers to make massive profits

​ while

 homeowners

​can't make 

a profit from their actions? After all 30 GW of PV systems would cost about R600 billion without batteries and about R1 trillion with batteries, assuming one can use the grid to top up the batteries at off

​-​

peak time. And none of this would be for the taxpayer's account, with no need for public borrowing. Assuming a 20 year build, over 10,000 houses would have solar-electricity systems installed every single week, a dramatic improvement over the current situation.

The R1 trillion budget is still less than the current budget of R1.4 trillion for 

​nuclear energy 

and as per the Integrated Resource Plan, even when that Nuclear Energy is on stream, South Africa will still have load shedding at least until 2029!

And there is almost zero opportunity for corruption in these 10 million installations, which have a build time of about a week each and where one can see if they are over budget or over time in a week. A far cry from the corruption and incredible delays and budget overruns we have seen in the recent coal and nuclear power station build.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

South Africa near tipping point

Cape Times letter from me, yesterday, Monday 1st December 2014: They called it "Country less than three years away from tipping point as pleas fall on deaf ears."

Dear Editor

​Minister ​of Public Enterprises ​Lynne Brown says that we will have load shedding because the existing power station build is ​four​years behind schedule.

The Integrated Resource Plan says South Africa will be short of electricity until 2029. The government believes that less electricity is required than originally forecast because demand is falling. But demand is falling because people are leaving and setting up businesses elsewhere where electricity is more reliable and cheaper.​

​The government believes that the solution is to build another coal power station, to build another ​five​ Koeberg power stations, and to "frack" the Karoo. But ​all three of these solutions are at least 10 years away and if the existing two power stations are ​four​ years behind schedule​,​ and an equivalent amount of existing power stations to Medupi and Kusile reach "end of life" in the next 10 years, then who knows when they will be ready and if they'll actually help the South African economy and its people​?​

​In​ the meantime, because Medupi and Kusile are late, our existing power stations, cabling infrastructure, transformers aren't being ​sufficiently ​maintained and are falling apart.​ ​South Africa is in a crisis of epic proportions.

But the biggest crisis isn't the electricity crisis or the Eskom crisis.​ ​The biggest crisis is that government​ -​ ANC and DA ​- isn't listening to the people, ​but ​is​ centralising decision​-​making at such an alarming rate that soon ​officials won't even hear their people.

I've been trying for a long time to get the government to see that actually they won't lose any revenue by allowing Embedded (homeowner) Generation, but they just won't listen, and so month by month South Africa has less electricity and more unemployment. I've had meetings with the DA, ACDP, IFP and ANC, all the way up to advisors who advise the cabinet.

But we are getting to a point where everyone will be able to make their own electricity economically without Eskom​,​ and then there will be a ​tipping ​point. I believe this is less than ​three years away.

But it will be a huge pity, because people will make their own electricity and the excess which could have been sold to the grid will be wasted, and this could completely change South Africa.

​Yours faithfully,
David Lipschitz
Milnerton.

Coming soon at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol...

Tesla Electric Vehicle #EV Taxi Fleet at Schipol Airport

Do Wind Turbines Kill Birds?

This is from research that predates 2013.

And new research in October 2014 can be found at Green Car Reports.

Who actually owns South Africa's power stations?

R1,000,000,000,000.00

R1 Trillion.

Would you spend R1 trillion of your money on Nuclear power stations? This represents another R2,500 per tax payer per month, of after tax money, plus VAT!! Or from an electricity price increase point of view, this represents at least another 150% increase in our electricity prices.

And South Africa's electricity prices are already higher than India, China and even Texas electricity prices. Why should international companies invest in South Africa? Why should South African companies invest in South Africa when there is cheaper infrastructure cost outside South Africa?

Government wants to spend our money on an old fashioned fossilised fuel system, propping up out of date companies and technologies.

I believe that our money should be spent integrating ourselves in Localised Micro (Smart) Grids, which are part of the bigger system, and which are better for the environment, better for our pockets, more reliable, and which allow Eskom to supply electricity to its large and business customers.

Watch Carte Blanche on Sunday night. 21st September 2014. 10 GW of nuclear electricity, or 17.5 GW of removed electricity? @carteblanchetv #Nuclear4SA Alternatives are cheaper. For R1 Trillion we can remove the entire homeowner peak grid demand, 17.5GW, and only use Eskom at off peak times between 10pm and 6am.

Note that the world is moving away from centralised power stations due to storms which destroy power lines and infrastructure and due to potential terrorist threats and also because it is getting a lot cheaper to run a distributed grid rather than a centralised one.

Government and Eskom have proved that they cannot build to budget and that they cannot built on time. If the power stations they are currently building were 65% over budget, but were delivered on time, perhaps we would forgive them. But the power stations are 2 years behind schedule. And worse than this, the other corner of the cost, time, quality triangle, also isn't being met. Quality is lower than expected, with all sorts of quality problems and also the lack of Flu Gas Desulphurisation, a part of the EIA process, which is not being built. Hence the new "clean coal" will not be "clean", actually cleaner. Burning coal can never be clean.

So the Government and Eskom can't deliver on Cost, Quality or Time. How much better for 10 million homeowners to be allowed to spend R100,000 each on average, or R1 trillion on providing many micro-grids. R100,000 is easy to manage. It is a one week project. If it is over time, or over budget or under quality, one can see this in a week.

And if you are concerned that homeowners don't have R100,000 each to spend, then that is actually not a problem, as homeowners will just be spending whatever they are spending on electricity now. Its just that the homeowner will eventually own the power stations. And this is applicable in areas where there are taxpayers and areas where people don't pay tax or receive grants.

And the money and its use is under direct control of the people spending it, i.e. the electricity buyer or 20th Century consumer, who becomes a 21st Century prosumer, a person who manufacturers the stuff he or she needs.