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As of July 2018, South Africa had a coal power generation capacity of 39 gigawatts (GW). [2] South Africa is the world's 14th largest emitter of greenhouse gases. [2] South Africa is planning to shift away from coal in the electricity sector and the country produces the most solar and wind energy by terawatt-hours in Africa. [3]
It acts as an energy storage system, by storing water in the upper reservoir during off-peak hours and releasing that water to generate electricity during peak hours. The City of Cape Town uses the power station for load balancing and to mitigate against loadshedding caused by the South African energy crisis. [2]
The Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme consists of two 200 megawatts (270,000 hp) turbine units located 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) upstream of the Kogelberg Dam on the Palmiet River near Cape Town, South Africa. [2] The pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant is capable of responding to a surge in peak power demand in minutes. [3]
The pumped-storage hydroelectric plant uses water from the upper reservoir to generate electricity during the peak demand periods of the day. At night, excess power on the grid generated by conventional coal and nuclear plants is used to pump water to the upper reservoir.
The Cahora-Bassa transmission project was a joint venture of the two electrical utilities, Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM, as it was known prior to 1987), latterly Eskom, Johannesburg, South Africa and Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), a firm owned 15% by the government of Portugal and 85% by Mozambique.
The scheme provides for up to 27.6 gigawatt-hours (99 TJ) of electricity storage in the form of 27,000,000 cubic metres (950,000,000 cu ft) of water. The water is pumped to Driekloof during times of low national power consumption (generally over weekends) and released back into Kilburn through four 250 megawatts (340,000 hp) turbine generators ...
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is an ongoing water supply project with a hydropower component, developed in partnership between the governments of Lesotho and South Africa. It comprises a system of several large dams and tunnels throughout Lesotho and delivers water to the Vaal River System in South Africa .
Around 81% of South Africa's energy needs are directly derived from coal [9] and 81% of all coal consumed domestically goes towards electricity production. [10] Historically this has given South Africa access to cheap electricity, but it is also one of the leading reasons that the country is in the top 20 list of carbon dioxide emitting countries.