INNOVATIVE WAYS FOR ENERGY GENERATING IN SOUTH AFRICA NEEDED – MINISTER
ROB DAVIES
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says innovative ways
for energy generating and investment are critically needed in South Africa in
order to industrialise and create jobs. Davies was speaking at the opening of a
R150 million Eternity Power Thermal Harvesting plant in Rustenburg yesterday.
The Eternity Power plant is
the first of its kind, in the world, and uses waste heat from the converter
cooling circuit at the Anglo American Platinum Waterval Smelter. The
development is collaboration between Vuselela Energy and Anglo American
Platinum. The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) committed R30
million through the Critical Infrastructure Programme (CIP) which supports
infrastructure that is critical to investment.
Minister Davies said the
Industrial Policy Action Plan has prioritised four value streams within the
context of beneficiation.
“One of those is platinum
group metals and within the platinum group what we are looking at is jewellery,
catalytic converters from motor industry, and fuel cell technology. We have
already identified a number of potential tools that we can deploy as
government. These tools include incude two potential Special Economic Zones
that could be declared based on Platinum Industry value chains and Operation
Phakisa on mining sector which is coming up within weeks now,” said Davies.
He added that the incentive
for the infrastructure resulted in the project becoming financially viable,
enabling Eternity Power to complete the building and construction of the power
plant. Davies also said that the impact of the plant on South Africa and the
economy is remarkable in that technological patents were developed and licensed
in South Africa during the process.
Speaking at the same event,
the Executive Head of Process at Anglo American Platinum, Mr July Ndlovu said
Anglo American Platinum was pleased to be at the forefront of this innovation
as it provides a solution to the energy challenges that an energy-intensive
operation like the smelting operation faces.
“We now have clean,
sustainable and reliable energy and are proud to open Eternity Power as South
Africa’s first thermal harvesting power plant in our operations. The plant is
performing beyond expectations, generating more power ahead of its schedule,”
he said.
The Director at Eternity
Power and H1 Holdings, Mr Reyburn Hendricks described the smelter sector as an
important component of South Africa’s mining and industrial economy. He said
smelters emit large quantities of energy in the form of furnace off-gas as well
as the emission of heat. Hendricks added that the dti played a critical role in
the Eternity Power project by providing a Critical Infrastructure Program (CIP)
grant towards the infrastructure of the project.
“The project is a first of
its kind: it is the first ORC plant in South Africa and is the first time in
the world that the technology is being configured in the specific manner at the
Anglo American Platinum Waterval smelter. Were it not for the provision of the
CIP grant, this project would not have proceeded given the equity and debt
providers' perceptions of risk due to the novelty of the project. In our
experience, a program like the CIP grant has been highly effective in getting
this plant off the ground, principally by sharing risk,” stated Hendricks
Minister Davies responded
to Hendricks by saying that government is not there to offer a huge amount of
money for the bottom line, but to offer something that will change the
behaviour in the long term development direction.
“So, if our R30-million has
encouraged the rest of you to go ahead with this project, then it shows the
value of our incentive,” said Minister Davies.
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