From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. Sustainable energy specialist BBEnergy recently demonstrated its new concentrated solar thermal plant to media and Eskom management at Eskom’s Rosherville research and development site, in Germiston.

Schalk Burger:
South African mining energy company BBEnergy is determined to use the blazing African sun to generate heat for industrial processes used in mining, such as gold elution and absorption chilling.

The company has commissioned its demonstration linear Fresnel concentrated solar thermal plant that uses the sun’s energy to heat up pressurised water in tubes, which can be injected directly into industrial hot water or steam applications, either to reduce electricity consumption or replace electrically generated heat used in mining processes.

BBEnergy CEO Dr Steven Bluhm explains about the locally designed and made renewable energy plant.

BBEnergy CEO Dr Steven Bluhm:
Most of our applications come from the mining industry as a first position.
I believe there are lots of applications for process heat all over the industry, but right now we are focusing on some gold mines, where they use process heat in the elution plant, and they have electric boilers and electricity providing steam and the idea is to put a field of these type of mirrors next to them, make the thermal heat from the mirrors when the sun is shining.
When the sun is not shining, they will draw from the electricity. It really is simple and we have got a number of bids out for that and we are hoping to get some return from our clients very soon.
We have also managed to secure some Eskom IDM funding to support those three projects.

The idea is you use solar power like this as a supplementation to what the coal boilers are doing. To make that happen, we need to be running this thing at a slightly higher temperature.
Our tests have showed us that we can achieve those temperatures, but we have been a bit constrained with pressure ratings of our fittings.
Our next test is going to be probably on a mine, and is going to move up to a much higher temperature level, which will then allow us to compete in that space for the power station augmentation, and that, I believe, is a huge market.

Schalk Burger:
Dr Bluhm adds that there are a number of industrial applications that BBEnergy can use the heat from a solar thermal plant.

Dr Steven Bluhm:
One is desalination. It really is a clever way to desalinate using the sun’s energy. Another one is you can drive refrigeration.

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: A report reveals that South African companies face water-related risks; and the streamlined Lafarge South Africa hopes to build solutions from product lines.

South African companies seem to be particularly exposed to water-related risks with 71% of respondents in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Water Disclosure Report 2012 indicating that they have experienced financially material water-related impacts.

Incite Sustainability director Jonathon Hanks

Global cement, readymix and aggregate company Lafarge reorganised last year to transform from its previous product-line focus to a country-based organisation, strongly focused on local markets and customers.

Lafarge South Africa CEO Thierry Legrand

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.