South African Business 2024

OVERVIEW
Engineering
Engineers are making the switch to renewable energy possible.
SECTOR INSIGHT
Pay-for-use models make new
technologies more accessible.
The Redstone Concentrated Solar Thermal (CSP) power plant
project (pictured) is the largest investment so far in terms
of the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power
Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). The large
undertaking, located near Postmasburg in the Northern Cape, has
also given Grinaker-LTA’s Civil Engineering division a substantial
foothold in one of South Africa’s fastest-growing economic sectors,
renewable energy.
Many South African engineering concerns are filling their order
books with renewable energy infrastructure orders as the country aims
to generate more power from solar, hydro-electric and wind plants and
fit more rooftop solar panels to houses and businesses.
Some of the key aspects which Grinaker-LTA was responsible
for included hot and cold storage tank bases, civil works, the steam
generation structure and the molten salt pump towers. The 100MW
plant is the first project-financed CSP with molten-salt-central receiver
in the world. ACWA Power, a Saudi developer, investor and operator of
power generation plants, and Chinese engineering company SEPCOIII
Electric Power Construction Limited, managed the project and they
jointly appointed Grinkaker-LTA as the contractor to execute the
construction of the project’s critical structures.
Also in the Northern
Cape, engineering skills are
being expanded by new work
associated with radio astronomy.
Local artisans from the town of
Carnarvon have built telescopes
for a radio telescope array project,
the 350-dish HERA project, which
is led by the US National Science
Foundation with the South Africa
Radio Astronomy Observatory
(SARAO) acting as the local
partner, responsible for systems
engineering and construction,
among other duties. At one point,
the construction team grew to 20
and many news skills were learnt.
When dairy company Clover
decided to consolidate its
national operations into just four
plants, technological expertise
was needed to make sure those
factories were able to cope
with greater demand. One such
company was Energy Partners
Refrigeration (EPR) who were
contracted to tackle a number
of issues, including increased
power requirements to higher
refrigeration load as well as
increased steam demand and
pressure requirements.
The upgrade of the cooling
structure featured the installation
of a new 10MW ammonia system
and 16% of all the electricity used
by the new system is generated by
solar PV. An innovative aspect of
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PHOTO: Grinaker-LTA