Nordic Africa Trade and Investment Seminar - NATF - 13 May 2016

1. 1
Biogas Promotion for Electricity
Generation, Transport and Household
Energy Access
by
Ambassador Carmen Smidt
2016

2. 2
• Biogas has a significant role to play in ensuring energy security
and supporting global initiatives such as sustainable energy for
all
• It is both desirable and viable for application in all three major
energy demand/supply sectors, namely electricity; heat and
transport
• Renewable energy is relatively new in South Africa
• Independent power producers have been concentrating on
solar and wind energy
• Bio-gas development is still very elementary in South Africa
• The government is in the process of refining policy
• There is strong commitment to realise this objective
Development of Renewable Energy Sector

3. 3
Development of Renewable Energy Sector . . . /Cont.
• At the moment there are only private consumers who produce
for own use
• Known ones are for sugar mills and cattle feedlots
• So far there is only one bio-gas plant from waste water
treatment plant in Johannesburg
• The buyer of power is South Africa’s monopoly power supplier,
Eskom
• Under the current Renewable Energy (RE) Independent Power
Producer (IPP) procurement programme or bid process, Eskom
will enter into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the
biogas producers.
• There is no law precluding producers to sell to private
consumers

4. Financing Biogas Projects
• A financial scheme is being put together with seed
capital provided by the KfW (German bank) to assist
small scale renewable energy projects which include
biogas
• The Department of Energy is working on the financing
mechanism for biofuels (bioethanol and biodiesel)
• The Energy and Environment Partnership Programme
(EEP) funded by the governments of Finland, Austria
and the UK has provided pre-investment grants to a
number of biogas projects
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5. Financing Biogas Projects
• One of these is the Bio2Watt plant located outside
Pretoria which was commissioned by end of 2014
 It has capacity to produce 3 MW
 Its primary feedstock is manure but will be augmented with other
organic waste
• South Africa’s Industrial development Corporation has
contributed Eur7,5 m loan to the Bio2Watt project
• Total project costs are estimated to amount to Eur10
million
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6. Financing Biogas Projects
• The market for bio-gas is in all the sectors,
including electricity, heat and transport
• Government through municipalities and the
relevant government departments is looking at
bioenergy for transportation
• Some municipal buses are already running on
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)
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7. Blending with petrochemicals
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• In so far as the transport sector is concerned, there is a lot of
work that is being done to identify alternatives to petrol and
diesel
• Mandatory blending regulations have been promulgated
• The Department of transport is revising its 1996 transport
policy with the prospect of promoting other alternative fuels
• The study is looking at facilitating large scale uptake of
Alternative Transport Fuels with specific reference to
biofuels

8. Viability of sector projects
• An in-depth analysis of the biofuels for transport value chain
(from source, upstream and downstream logistics to
consumption in vehicle fleets) has already been completed as
part of this investigation
• Given the volumes of waste feedstock, biogas projects are
viable
• Its exploitation offers multiple benefits such as waste
management, reduction of Greenhouse gases, energy
production and job creation and localisation potential
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9. Information on funding available at:
www.dti.gov.za
THANK YOU

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10. Information on funding available at:
www.dti.gov.za
THANK YOU

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