Bill Gates promotes in a serious video the Omniprocessor, a mini-treatment plant that converts human waste into drinking water and electricity. An initiative supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight health problems affecting nearly 2 billion people worldwide. Bill Gates, the famous founder of Microsoft dedicated himself, since his retirement, to philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, presented on his blog one year ago, an innovative machin

An ambitious plan to electrify Africa was launched by the African Development Bank (AfDB) on January 21st, as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The New Deal for energy in Africa provides that the private sector and local governments join forces on projects to enhance power generation capacity, with a view to achieving universal access to energy Africa by 2025. The initiative was unveiled in September 2015 at a consultative meeting of senior AfDB headquarters in Abid

Orange and ENGIE join forces to supply electricity to Africa   Orange and Engie have signed an exciting  parternship in order to achieve one goal: bring reliable electricity to those who have poor access to electricity. The issue of electricity in Africa is a great opportunity for the two French companies. They intend to offer individual solutions for Africans, they want houses to be provided with its own photovoltaic panel to supply the daily needs of electricity for a fam

Energy saving has always been a fundamental, either to protect the environment or their bank account. To make this goal easier to achieve, there are simple yet very effective reflexes to adopt in our everyday life. 5 days to rise to this challenge… until next week end ! DAY 1 – House Lightening Don’t leave the lights in rooms which are not being used on. Do switch to light bulbs which are energy –efficient.   DAY 2 – House Heating Don’t let colder air to flow in your hous

Monday, the 14 th of December 2015, was the last day for the public to comment on Eskom’s request to increase electricity tariffs in 2016 so that they can recover R22.8 bn. Eskom proposed a 9.58% increase which would form part of the planned total of 25.3%, which is allocated to cover R11.7bn in revenue shortfall, R2.4bn for primary energy costs as well as R8bn for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) required to alleviate the amount of load shedding by providing additional c

Buying tokens is as easy as pie Buying prepaid electricity has become as easy as getting your phone out and pressing a few buttons. In the blink of an eye, you can recharge your “batteries” and enjoy reading at night. No hassle and no loss of time, without a need to plan ahead, it is no wonder prepaid electricity meters have gained interest within the South African population!     2. Monitor your consumption First of all, with prepaid electricity meters, it has become very ea

Eskom could deal a serious blow to the growth of electricity produced by IPPs (Independent Power Producers), due to the fact that, according to ESKOM’s Juan la Grange, they cannot afford it. Renewable energy is undeniably the way of the future and globally we have realised that there is a need to decrease our dependence on limited resources such as fossil fuels to meet our energy demands. This movement towards renewables is not only good for future proofing our energy sources

What if all of your windows and even your phone could generate electricity but keep the same design at the same time? It is not science fiction anymore. Researchers in Michigan worked on a fully transparent solar cell that could make every window and screen a power source. This technology has already been used in the past few years, but until now the solar cells were never completely transparent. Indeed solar cells, specifically the photovoltaic kind, make energy by absorbin

On average, South African electricity demand is around 29 000 MW and production capacity 42 800 MW. This is the average consumption, but it might peak higher than that on some days. When that occurs and when supply is lower than demand, Eskom initiates load-shedding to prevent a collapse of the grid. On August 23 rd 2015, unit 6 of the new Medupi Power station went into commercial operation and it delivers an additional 794 MW of power into the national grid, taking nationa

Startups and large companies all over the world are searching for solutions to make your life easier but also to help you save energy and money. It is no longer necessary to invest in large and expensive products or installations in order to do so! You can control your consumption, for instance, with an energy monitor which can be purchased on the Powertime store , or you can use new and innovative but affordable products which help achieve smarter energy consumption. Powerti

South Africa is one of the cheapest power producer, so the country provides electricity for other countries on the African continent. However, the national supply is not sufficient anymore to meet the demand, especially during peaks hours. Actually, less electricity was produced in South Africa in 2014 compared with 2013. Data shows that national electricity production has been in decline after peaking in 2011, highlighting the country’s continued struggle to keep the lights

In the Johannesburg suburb Parkhurst, the technology and electricity innovations are not just ideas: they are implemented by the local residents themselves! How to get electricity off-grid? Last year, the local resident’s association laid fibre in the suburb before Telkom even thought about getting it installed in the area. After that, a large number of suburbs decided to follow their lead, but the initiative does not stop at the fibre level. The local Parkhurst association n

You still wonder how Cape Town total blackout looks like? Just have a look on that video: Now imagine it lasting 2 full weeks? It would be a disaster for the city and its residents. To prevent this to happen, the City of Cape Town is currently discussing solutions. Two of them seem to be realistic. Electricity generators The city is considering the approval of a R245m special budget to buy items producing electricity, especially generators. They would only provide electricit

Dutch scientists have developed a revolutionary system that could one day help isolated villages around the world steadily generate electricity from mundane water-logged plants such as rice growing in paddy fields. Plant-e , a company based out of the Netherlands, has found the way to create electricity from living plants and use them to power streetlights, wifi hotspots and cellphones chargers. The "Starry Sky" project started in November 2014 near Amsterdam, with more than

In South Africa, rolling blackouts – or “load shedding” – have gone from being a very rare occurrence to a common feature of everyday life, shoddy maintenance of the country’s power generation and transmission network has forced national utility Eskom to institute power cuts of up to two hours twice a day. At the current trend, it’s a 1360% rise in the number of hours in darkness due to blackouts in South Africa, from an average of just 50 hours per year prior to 2014, to 730

Using figures from 10 years ago in 2004, almost 200000 MWh of electricity were sold to more than 7000 customers. Most customers are residential (94%) but they use less than 18% of all electricity sold. There are over 170 licensed electricity distributors in South Africa. Eskom serves 48% of customers in the country and municipalities serve 52% . The current position in the electricity distribution industry is the result of its historical development. Before 1994, municipaliti

Load shedding is a last-resort measure implemented by the national utility Eskom in order to prevent the electricity grid from collapsing countrywide. Load shedding is typically implemented when the difference between Eskom's power supply and the industrial and domestic users' demand for power becomes too small. In order to prevent a disastrous national blackout, Eskom implements planned and controlled power interruptions aiming at reducing the pressure on the national power

Powertime has made a selection of the best mobile apps to use for load-shedding. We'll never let you in the dark! So have a look at our selection, share it to your friends and family, and make load-shedding less painful. #1. Loadshedding > Available on iOS , Android > Supported areas:  Eskom direct customers, Johannesburg (City Power) , Cape Town (City of Cape Town), City of Ekurhuleni, Pretoria (City of Tshwane), Nelson Mandela Bay municipality and Durban (eThekwini).  

What is Free Basic Electricity? FBE is the amount of electricity, which is deemed sufficient to provide basic electricity services to a poor household. This amount of energy will be sufficient to provide basic lighting, basic media access, basic water heating using a kettle and basic ironing in terms of grid electricity and basic lighting and basic media access for non-grid systems. The origin of Free Basic Electricity (FBE) South African access to electricity increased from

The latest Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Energy Center’s study published in January 2015 proves that South Africa is gaining ground on renewable energy. In 2014, green energy allowed to save diesel and coal fuel and avoid « unserved energy » from approximately 1.6 GW of wind and solar power capacity. This remains in an amount of savings of approximately R 5,3 billion while they cost only R4.5 billion in tariffs payments to independent power producers.