Big Batteries? Here’s a way to do it our way...

--:--
s South Africa's efforts to plug the gaps in our electricity supply grind slowly forward there's a clear hole emerging in the plans for new, renewable energy generation. The hole is the absence of storage, of batteries, that are being rapidly deployed now around the word at a fast pace. In SA though, batteries are a sort of afterthought. Assuming the government planned 513MW of battery storage are actually built, storage will still be just a fraction of the new generation procured. It doesn't make sense. In this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, Peter Bruce talks to Frank Spencer, head of deployment at Bushveld Energy, a subsidiary of Bushveld Mining, which is listed in London. Bushveld is building a plant near East London to make electrolyte for its Vanadium Redox Flow Battery. Spencer says a plentiful supply of vanadium in SA shouldn't be over looked as the rest of the world rushes into lithium ion batteries. The VRFB lasts way longer, doesn't catch fire and we can build it here. To prove it, Bushveld not only making electrolyte in East London, it is building a 3MW solar plant at its mine near Brits in North West to feed a new 1MW/h battery, a demonstration VRFB, to show potential new clients. If Bushveld gets it right, towns and cities could go the direct battery route and get Eskom to charge them when it is not load-shedding. It’s a new option. Different, and local.
24 Oct 2022 English South Africa News Commentary · Politics

Other recent episodes

Time to Rise?

Rise Mzansi is the new kid on South Africa’s heaving political block. Its founder and leader, former Bus9ness Day editor Songezo Zibi, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that the new party is “onboarding” 20 people a week — they’re not members but people promising…
24 Oct 2023 34 min

Perhaps not quite the perfect match

The Springboks won an almost impossible rugby test match on Sunday, beating Rugby World Cup hosts France in what many commentators have called the greatest game of rugby ever played. But as Peter Bruce warns in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, there is a dark side to winning…
18 Oct 2023 10 min

High, dry and very lucky

A gigantic flood smashed through the village of Stanford in the Western Cape last week, leaving Podcasts from the Edge presenter Peter Bruce in awe of the silent power of water. Fortunately no-one lost their life but there were some close calls. Its hard, and probably foolish to apportion blame…
4 Oct 2023 18 min

Execrable English or Cunning Code?

The General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill is an attempt to rewrite what South Africa’s national interest it. On a first read it turn out to be almost exactly the government interests as well. So opposing government policy, advocating for it to fail or funding legal challenges to literally anything the…
20 Sep 2023 15 min

Cyril Ramaphosa's sweet dreams

President Cyril Ramaphosa told the country on television on Sunday night that the recent Brics summit in Johannesburg was all about creating “a fairer and more inclusive world order”. New World Orders are the stuff the Russian and Chinese leaders dream about. To hear them slip so easily from a…
6 Sep 2023 13 min