Water Wheel Nov/Dec 2021: Water And Power Generation

Abstract

Spectacular debt saddles Eskom, yet it needs to find ways to spend even more while somehow reining in tariff hikes. It’s enough to blow the biggest of fuses, but at the same time, there’s a different Eskom to consider, one that’s a world leader in certain water-saving energy generation technologies. The utility is the largest producer of electricity on the African continent. While producing 95% of South Africa’s electricity and, in the face of a difficult set of circumstances, it manages to stay in line with world power sector averages for water consumption. It also holds itself to some exacting, even laudable, standards for water use. In the mid-1990s the power giant adopted a philosophy of zero liquid-effluent discharge. Under normal circumstances operations at its power stations do not lead to spillages into the environment. Eskom has put in place systems to recover, recycle and reuse water in a number of often complex ways, particularly for cooling at its 13 completed coal-fired stations.

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