Eskom eyes solar, gas from coal

Johannesburg - South Africa's power utility Eskom sees solar, thermal and underground coal gasification playing a significant role in its energy mix to reduce its reliance on coal and cut its carbon footprint, an official said.

Steve Lennon, Eskom's Managing Director for Corporate Services, said projects would take shape next year.

"You will be seeing the timing of big renewables, the timing of nuclear, you will be seeing more certainty on underground coal gasification... first quarter next year you will see a lot of things come together," Lennon told Reuters in an interview.

He said Eskom was designing a 42 megawatts pilot plant to test a technology to gasify deep coal deposits underground and feed the gas into a combined cycle gas turbine.

It then plans to scale up the project to a 2 100 MW plant.

"Probably by the end of 2011 that gas pilot will be up and running, which means that a full-scale plant, everything going well, could be running around 2015-16," he said.

- Reuters