View Document - Parliament of South Africa

771 FRIDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2008
772
(4) whether he will request the Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) or any other state organisation
reporting to him, to investigate
the quality of energy efficiency of
electric appliances, equipment and
machines marketed locally in order
to ensure that more energy efficient
appliances and machines are used; if
not, what steps are his department
taking to assist the government to
regulate the more efficient use of
electricity; if so, what are the relevant
details? NW2557E
The MINISTER OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY:
(1) (b) Optimal Energy has done extensive
research to determine that
there is sufficient capacity available
to power its vehicles, as this
is one of the building blocks of the
business case.
(b) Optimal Energy’s research findings,
based on electricity demand
patterns in South Africa, confirm
that no extra electricity capacity is
required to supply the proposed
conversion to electric-driven vehicles
on South African roads.
(2) As indicated above, this has been done.
In its recent Annual Report, Eskom
shows a current installed capacity of
about 38 000 MW, with the demand for
electricity approaching this level during
peak times. The peak demand is
traditionally between 07:00-10:00 and
18:00-21:00, with lowest demand for
power between 22:00 and 06:00. During
off-peak times the demand drops to
approximately 24 000 MW, which
leaves an excess capacity of 12 600
MW.
This excess capacity is enough to
charge approximately 12,9 million vehicles
every night. This is based on an
annual travel distance of 20 000
kilometres and an upper quartile esti-
mation of 150 watt hours of electricity
usage per kilometre travelled. This is
significantly more than the 9,2 million
registered vehicles that are currently on
South African roads. It is evident that
Eskom has sufficient excess capacity to
supply electricity for the purpose of
charging electric vehicles during offpeak
periods.
(3) Given that the average number of vehicles
on South African roads increased
by 3,2%, annually between 2000 and
2005, this and the 9,2 million registered
vehicles in 2008 as a base figure to
predict the vehicle growth figures, there
will be an estimated 13,4 million vehicles
on our roads in 2020.
If 20% of these are electrical, which is
an optimistic scenario; it means that
there will be only 2,6 million electrical
vehicles on our roads in 2020. This is
approximately a factor of five less than
what Eskom’s current excess capacity
can handle. These calculations do not
take Eskom’s plans to double its capacity
to 80 000 MW by 2025 into account.
(4) A preliminary study commissioned by
the South African National Energy
Research Institute (SANERI) has indicated
that there is a need to regulate the
quality of energy efficiency of electric
appliances as there are wide variations
in power consumption levels in appliances
with the same functionality and
capabilities. The large variations indicate
that there is scope for effective
minimum energy performance standards
to eliminate poor performing
appliances. While it was limited in
scope, this study is being used to
inform the labelling of appliances.
There is also an energy efficiency (EE)
working committee that has been established
within the South African Bureau
of Standards (SABS) in order to coordinate
standardising of the quality of