BMW hosts inaugural e-mobility summit
BMW South Africa held its first-ever electro mobility (e-mobility) stakeholder summit in George, Western Cape, recently as part of a drive to begin unpacking the future of e-mobility domestically. The week-long event was attended by groups of business and motoring...
IT automation achieves energy efficiency
Increasing energy costs and expanding power utilisation needs are having a direct impact on business profitability. Add to this the social concerns over the global climate crisis and conservation efforts that have led to regulatory compliance initiatives, and...
African Utility Week to focus on investors
The new GET FiT investment mechanism which brings private and public investors together, the proposed BRICS Bank and China’s funding relationship with Africa are some of the updates featured during the investment and finance track of the upcoming African Utility Week...
Ricoh named sustainability leader
Ricoh is one of Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the world for the ninth year and has been every year since the list's inception in 2005. The list recognised Ricoh in three areas: resource management; financial management; and employee management. “The list...
Ensure power at mission-critical facilities
Constant power supply is fundamental to the operation of a mission-critical facility. Yet, according to Eben Owen, Enterprise and Solutions manager for South Africa at Schneider Electric, as power outages are not uncommon, certain electrical design considerations need...
SoHos and SMEs require a UPS
Small businesses face the same IT challenges and frustrations as their larger counterparts, yet they don’t have the resources a larger organisation may have to resolve these issues, says Elrica Quick, APC specialist at Drive Control Corporation (DCC). When it comes...
Sasol selects 1E solutions
1E, the global leader in IT efficiency software and local company sustainableIT, has announced that Sasol, the South African based integrated energy and chemical company, has selected two 1E IT Efficiency solutions to help achieve widespread efficiency savings...
Powering digital systems for power stations
Much of the globe’s infrastructure is controlled digitally via supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) systems, and South Africa’s own power utility, Eskom, which supplies almost 95% of the country’s electricity, is no exception. The parastatal recently...
Solar energy can ease price hikes
Solar energy can help South African companies overcome financial implications of future price hikes. Particularly medium-size businesses can benefit. However, in order for sun-generated energy to become mainstream among the South African private sector, the solar...
Lithium-ion battery lessons from Boeing
In November 2006, it took hours for fifty fire fighters to quench the blaze at it raged through the Securaplane Technologies building in Tucson, Arizona. The reason? A laboratory test on a lithium-ion battery had got out of control, writes Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman,...
SA’s solar energy debate
South Africa is the third best solar location globally, as it has one of the highest and most stable solar radiations in the world. With 2 500 hours of sunshine annually - equalling one third of a year or four entire months including nightly hours - the opportunities...
Electric cars: success by a different route
Pure electric cars are a disaster. On-road pure electric cars continue to sell at a level barely above one quarter of the sales of pure electric golf cars or a tenth of pure electric forklifts, says Dr Peter Harrop, chairman, IDTechEx. Those golf cars are profitable...