CHINA has expressed interest in sharing its electricity generation technology and expertise with SA and its neighbours, all of which are in need of more generating capacity.
Liu Dongye, of China Electricity Council International (CEC), says China is offering its world- class technology and equipment which it believes will go a long way in meeting SA’s requirement of 55000MW of electricity capacity by 2025 to satisfy its economic and social development needs.
Such a deal will be a commercial transaction, not aid, Liu says.
The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) has estimated that SA alone would need more than half of the 102871MW of electricity generation capacity that will be needed for the entire Southern African Development Community (Sadc) by 2025.
“It is not that China wants to only buy raw materials from this continent or to provide credit lines for big projects, it also wants to share its technology and expertise for the development of Africa and to benefit its people,” Liu told Business Day.
He says the council has established an office to promote international trade, particularly for the electrical power industry. The office is the “window and bridge to the outside world” for the nation- wide power industry association composed of 1440 members.
He says the office is responsible for organising exhibitions and conferences abroad and it has plans to co-operate with the SAPP in a bid to share project information and consultation services on power generation.
Liu made a presentation on behalf of the CEC to the Sadc Power Sector Investors’ roundtable discussion held in Livingstone, Zambia, last month. He told the meeting that the council had a total electricity capacity generation of 800GW — up from 100GW in 1987. However, including other sources of electricity generation, China generated 3433,4 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity last year and the country’s total consumption was estimated at 3100TWh (a terawatt is 1-trillion watts ).
Other sources of electricity in China include 7000MW of wind power capacity, a total that was achieved this year. It has an additional 22900MW of nuclear power capacity — some of it still under construction — and there are several thousand watts being generated through solar and biomass, with additional capacity- building projects under progress.
In response to local and international calls for energy saving efforts and environment protection, Liu says China has seen 16690MW of small thermal power units phased out by last year. It has also ensured that generation capacity is installed with desulphar equipment in some of its power stations, reaching more than 379GW. This accounts for 66% of all thermal power capacity.
China’s transmission lines totalled 1,6-million kilometres last year using cables that could handle voltage levels of between 35kV and 750kV. He says cables with high-voltage capacity would be required when the proposed transmission lines within Sadc are built to connect Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo with SA on the one hand, and with Angola, Namibia and Botswana on the other.
Other envisaged transmission lines will link Zambia with Tanzania and Kenya, while a separate line will link Mozambique with both SA and Malawi.
He says China has built and tested thousands of kilometres of high-voltage capacity transmission lines.
For example, it has a 1000kV ultra-high-voltage alternating current line in operation and is constructing an 800kV ultra-high- voltage direct current line.
China is also working on the construction of the world’s first 1000MW ultra-supercritical air- cooled generating unit.
According to Dr Lawrence Musaba of the SAPP, the Sadc region is surviving on its 55000MW capacity. The region needs “to substantially fund regional energy generation projects that could collectively increase the capacity by another 57000MW”. It would require about $43bn for the project.
radebeh@bdfm.co.za