Cape Town - South Africa has attracted investment for renewable projects worth billions of rand over the past five years or so, and solar installation has also doubled in the country while utilities may invest in smart metering systems.
These were some of the issues discussed at the African Utility Week conference this week, which ends at the Cape Town International Convention Centre today.
William Mzimba, chief executive at Accenture, said the “smart grid” was one of the key focus areas and could create a better interface with consumers and allow better management of scarce resources.
He said there has been investment worth more than R190 billion over the past five to seven years.
“We offer great opportunities for energy. Better regional collaboration to harness the different resources we have will be a sustainable outlook.”
James Rogers, former chief executive and chairman of the board for Duke Energy in the US, said solar and wind would be cost-effective within about five years.
Rogers said utilities should embrace fossil-based energy and renewable energy because they were capable of running both.
He said 620 million people in Africa had no access to electricity and power accessibility translated into better education and health care.
Rogers said it was cheaper to provide solar energy than off the grid to people in remote areas in Africa.
“We should be humbled by the enormity of the challenge we face and think outside the box. We owe it to the 620 million people.”
Tony Smallwood, Vodacom’s executive head for internet and internet of things (iot), said there was much hype around products and devices being connected to the internet.
He said this included connectivity, better revenue collection, new revenue streams, compliance and regulation conformity.
He added that there were various reasons utilities would connect to the smart meter, and that the traditional way of billing was the physical meter reader.
“Smart metering allows that meter to communicate to the billing system without human intervention.
“That talks to better revenue collection and better efficiency.
“Another use case would be theft of metal from pylons where the metal is used for scrap metal sale.”
Smallwood said vibration would be detected by the sensor on the pylon, which would indicate tampering.
The utility could then alert security or the police to intervene.
“This is the internet of things assisting securing our assets.
“From a Vodacom perspective, these are the things we use to work with utilities for solutions to improve revenue collection and secure valuable assets. Some of the power distributors are on a more mature stage of embracing iot.”
Michael Liebreich, the advisory board’s chairman and founder for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, UK, said the world must achieve greenhouse neutrality by the second half of the century and that Africa’s new investment in clean energy was growing, particularly for solar.
He said the volume of solar installed had doubled every two years in South Africa.
Liebreich said another “miracle” was the launch of the Tesla Model 3, the latest electric car, which has attracted orders of about 276 000, worth almost $12bn.
He said the launch of the Tesla 3 was a game-changer and there were other electric models such as the BMW i3, VW e-Golf, Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf.
“The world is going to go towards electric cars. There will be added electricity demand because of electric cars.”
Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who announced the launch of the Tesla Model 3 last month, said the car will initially be released in the US, with South Africa also on the list. Its expected arrival date will be in 2018.
Sean Pretorius, the chief operation officer at Risk Benefits Solutions, said consumers were increasingly seeking alternative methods to save money as fuel prices and other living expenses continued to rise.
He said although cheaper to run than a petrol or diesel powered car, the maintenance and repair of a electric car could be more expensive and, in turn, would push up insurance premiums.
He said another cost to consider was the value of the vehicle, given its retail value, which was estimated at $35 000 (nearly R500 000).
CAPE ARGUS