As South Africa undertakes its journey to reduce carbon emissions, while also ensuring equitable access to energy for its citizens, energy efficiency should play a key role in these efforts.

Moreover, as more renewable energy sources start to come online, there is a need for the country to explore solutions such as flexible engine power plant solutions, as these can assist with mitigating the grid constraints stemming from the intermittency of solar and wind resources. 

This was highlighted by Wärtsilä South Africa Energy Solutions business development manager Sujen Balakisson during a discussion on energy efficiency in South Africa on October 4.

He outlined that energy efficiency entails minimising consumption and providing more reliable and consistent energy sources, while also ensuring that solutions are delivered to the majority in the most cost-effective way.

Balakisson said the company had undertaken considerable work to explore options to achieve greater energy efficiency, and had also released a White Paper in this vein.

Balakisson said energy efficiency was feasible in the country, with renewable energy being introduced in a gradual process.

He averred that ensuring that this was done correctly, and for the grid to be able to support intermittent sources of energy, both external and internal solutions would be required.

Balakisson informed that Wärtsilä had been actively engaging with stakeholders in terms of flexible engine power plant solutions that it could provide, despite several regulatory challenges.

He emphasised that the country needed to reduce its reliance on outdated energy technologies or a fleet that was not running correctly and was using obsolete equipment and spare parts, which resulted in operational inefficiencies. 

He pointed out that the company offered a myriad of flexible engine power plant solutions that could provide baseload availability or support an optimised transition to renewable energy.

Balakisson emphasised that such solutions were key to ensuring stable and secure energy supply, as they provided a balancing act to the energy system, which was seeing the gradual introduction of unstable renewable energy sources.

He also highlighted that a differentiating factor of the company’s flexible solutions was that they provided greater efficiency as compared to other solutions.

Speaking to Engineering News, Balakisson informed that these solutions currently use 100% synthetic and carbon-neutral methane and methanol, but are also capable of using hydrogen or natural gas blends containing up to 25% hydrogen.

He added that the company was undertaking work to provide a pure hydrogen solution as well.