Cennergi's winds of change

Once the two projects currently under construction at Medupi and Kusile come on-stream by 2015 and 2018, there may never be another coal-powered station built in the country.

With Eskom no longer having the sole responsibility for electricity generation in South Africa, new independent providers are moving into the market. In 2006, the coal, mineral sands, base metals and industrial minerals at South African giant Kumba Resources were separated from the iron ore interests and emerged as Exxaro-one of South Africa's largest diversified mining companies. Thomas Garner was one of the Kumba Resources executives given the task of investigating all further possibilities. Garner and his team developed a model for an independent energy producer operating across the spectrum of energy sources-"coal and gas at one end and renewables at the other," he says.

Exxaro and the Tata Power Company of India have formed a 50:50 partnership to create a new energy company, Cennergi, of which Garner is the CEO. "We have set ourselves the target of being the largest independent electricity supplier," says Garner. The race is already on. Cennergi has won two licences to produce wind generated electricity with a total capacity of 234MW which can be done, Garner is convinced, at a comparable price to coal-powered. Business Excellence reports that Cennergi's second technological focus is solar power. The company has one photovoltaic project it has developed from scratch, and a second it has acquired.

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