Welcome to the mid-winter edition of the SESSA Members Newsletter.

On 19 and 20 March 2009, more than 400 delegates attended the “2009 Renewable Energy Summit” in Pretoria, South Africa. The aim of the Summit was to undertake a mid-term review on the progress made since approval of the White Paper on Renewable Energy in 2003 and agree on a new set of resolutions, policy direction and action plans to rapidly scale up and streamline the application of renewable energy in South Africa.

A document released by the DME outlining the resolutions from the summit can be downloaded here.

1. A copy of the key elements of a presentation to the NERT on 28 May 2009
2. Explanatory memorandum on amendments
3. The energy efficiency clauses in the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill

National Treasury is receiving comments from interested parties on the draft legislation up until 26 June 2009.

Three new global reports have recently been released. See more information on the SESSA website & links to the reports at the following links:

• REN21 Renewables Global Status Report
• UNEP's Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009 Report
• Global Concentrating Solar Power Outlook 09

Should you wish to contribute to the SESSA website either by way of an article or even suggestions around additions or refinements to current content, please don't hesitate to e-mail me.

The Central Energy Fund (CEF) have announced an extension to the deadline for proposals to supply solar water heaters to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The call is for batches of 500 units with an installation potential of 100 000 systems for the Municipality and negates any previous considerations, discussions or assumed commitments that may be prevalent under the previous CEF Sustainability procurement process. Please see further details at CEF's website.

By now, all paid-up corporate members of SESSA should have a login to the corporate members section of the http://sessa.org.za. If you have misplaced your login details, the facility does exist on the website for password retrieval. Failing this, please e-mail me and I will reset your password and provide you with the new login details.

Content contained in the corporate members blog which is only accessible when logged in includes:

1. Information on advtertising, having a stand or taking part in the Green Home pavilion of the Natural & Organic Products Exhibition
2. The previous call for Proposals for SWH in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (now outdated after CEF's amended version)
3. The new SESSA Solar Water Heating Division logo in various formats along with useage guidelines
4. SESSA financials for 2008
5. Details on a management training programme
6. AGM documents from earlier this year

We now have 26 topics and 45 replies in our online forum. Recent topics include:

1. Various presentations posted by Robin Thomson from Domestic Use of Energy (DUE) event held in April 2009
2. Minutes of SESSA SWHD meeting 6 May 2009
3. Some inputs into problems associated with Solar tanks prefeeding
4. A discussion around advertising and the members directory on http://sessa.org.za
5. The lastest website statistics for http://sessa.org.za

If you have any comment or further inputs on any of the above topics or any new ones, please log in at http://sessa.org.za and have your say. You will be notified automatically via e-mail of any additional responses to your posts, so there is no need to monitor your contributions continuously.

The SESSA SWHD logo has been altered. Division members can log in to the SESSA website to find a zip file containing the latest logo in various formats for inclusion on their organisation's website. Your web designer should know which is the most appropriate for your particular circumstances.

Please note the following:

1. The company is only allowed to use the logo if they are a fully paid up member of the SESSA SHWD for the current year
2. The logo MAY NOT be used in association with any product
3. The logo is not a product certification
4. It may be used on letters, memos and e-mail and advertising to highlight the company's membership of the division
5. It would be appreciated if members would hyperlink the logo back to http://sessa.org.za when used on their websites or e-mail stationery

The first informal corporate member poll garnered 27 votes and posed the following question:

When communicating with members, SESSA should...

1. Post issues to the forums as they arise & send a brief monthly newsletter with a collation of topical links to the website - 17 votes
2. Set up a members e-mail list & send adhoc e-mails as & when new issues arise - 7 votes
3. Collate items into a comprehensive & lengthy monthly newsletter - 3 votes

As a corporate member of SESSA your organisation has an entry in the online directory. Do you or anyone in your organisation monitor the number of visitors that get to your website via http://sessa.org.za?

1. Yes
2. No
3. We don't have a website
4. We would like to but we don't know how

Please log in to the SESSA site to cast your vote.

The Natural & Organic Products Exhibition from 26th to 28th June will be hosting a Green Home Pavilion which is a good opportunity for members to directly market to the consumer. See the show's website here or see the members section of the SESSA website for details on contacting the organiser.

The REEEP Southern Africa Secretariat in Conjunction with SERN is holding a workshop entitled "Policy and Regulation for Energy Efficiency in Southern Africa" in Johannesburg on the 9th &10th of July 2009. For more information, please see the event website.

There are only 117 more days to go until the ISES Solar World Congress 2009 - the 29th biennial congress of the International Solar Energy Society, The conference will be held in Johannesburg from 11 to 14 October 2009. Please visit the conference website for further information on this major event.

Local

1. Fresh air to power South Africa? (BBC, June 15)
2. Eskom creates a perfect storm (Mail & Guardian, June 15)
3. R1,8bn ethanol-from-sugar plant planned for KZN (Engineering News, June 12)
4. 'Poor must be protected from power tariff hikes' (Mail & Guardian, June 11)
5. Eskom's tariff hike request slammed by all comers (Business Report, June 9)
6. South Africa: Kuyasa Carbon Credits Cut Electricity Costs (allAfrica.com, June 8)
7. Power producers ‘can increase Eskom’s capacity’ (Business Day, June 8)
8. SA energy data base will help attract foreign investment – KPMG (Engineering News, June 4)
9. Africa: Biofuels And Neo-Colonialism (allAfrica.com, June 4)
10. Renewable energy punted as quick fix for Eskom (Business Day, June 2)
11. Renewable feed-in tariff could include large-scale PV projects, study shows (Engineering News, June 2)
12. South Africa: Government Edging Towards Renewable Sources (allAfrica.com, June 1)
13. SA’s wind-energy capacity could be 300 MW by 2012 – study (Engineering News, June 1)
14. Eskom may need to ask for 90% increase (Business Report, May 29)
15. Private power sector to get new rules (Business Day, May 22)
16. Energy policy: Ten ways to provide SA with more and cleaner power (Business Day, May 21)
17. New-look energy portfolio welcomed (Business Day, May 12)
18. Demand for energy in cities ‘set to double’ (Business Day, May 6)

International

1. Surprising Green Energy Investment Trends Found Worldwide (Science Daily, June 7)
2. Germany's Solar Head Start (Scientific American, June 5)
3. Slide Show: The World's 10 Largest Renewable Energy Projects (Scientific American, June 4)
4. Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment, says UN (Guardian, June 3)
5. Energy Leaders Launch Efficiency Partnership (Worldwatch Institute, June 2)
6. A solar plant that's worth its salt (Los Angeles Times, May 29)
7. Poo power to the people (Guardian, May 28)
8. Concentrated solar power could generate 'quarter of world's energy' (Guardian, May 26)

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