Practical case studies, success stories and discussions on energy storage and alternative energy solutions will be featured in free-to-attend sessions at the upcoming Enlit Africa conference and expo, taking place from 16–18 May in Cape Town.
Enlit Africa’s programme focusing on energy storage and alternative energy solutions is paying particular attention to the priorities of the commercial and industrial sector, security and stability of power supply.
Speaker and topic highlights include: The economics of energy storage, unpacking energy storage applications as transmission and distribution asset, and a Mini-Workshop about understanding the fundamentals of electricity wheeling in a multi-stakeholder environment.
Mediclinic to become carbon-neutral by 2030
Petrus Swanepoel, Mediclinic’s Infrastructure Sustainability Manager, will unpack how his company has dealt with South Africa’s energy challenges in a presentation at Enlit Africa on “How to prepare for a successful storage project: Building the business case”.
“Our strategy is changing, and we are investigating maximising renewable energy and installing as many PV panels as possible. Yes, we will have excess power, and we want to use that excess power and store it in batteries and use these batteries during off-peak times, during loadshedding times or going forward, and if we are lucky and there is no more loadshedding, we want to use that battery storage in peak times to absorb the expensive costs of electricity during peak periods,” says Swanepoel.
“We have also embarked on a wheeling strategy, whereby we buy offsite renewable energy. That’s more of a long-term strategy. The market is developing at this stage, but to make sure that, at the end of the day, we cover our load onsite with renewables, our remaining part will be covered by offsite renewables in the form of wheeling. We have a global strategy to become carbon-neutral by 2030,” Swanepoel concludes.
