- 90% of Midstream residents voted in favour of the ambitious Midstream Energy Plan which will primarily store solar energy in a large battery bank and then feed the energy to the Midstream residents during load shedding.
- During an energy indaba meeting held with the community, the plan was presented to the community who were requested to indicate their support through a survey.
- More than 50% of the residents voted with 90% giving clear direction on the project team to proceed with the plan which is due to be in action by August ‘23.
Midstream Estate, a large upmarket residential estate in Midrand, Johannesburg, is planning to install a large battery bank to store energy from solar PV generation plants, the grid and a bank of generators to mitigate against the effects of severe loadshedding that is crippling the country. The plan to avert load shedding stages 1 to 4 was discussed with Midstream residents at a special Energy Indaba held 7 February 2023.
The residents showed their overwhelming support for the ambitious R200 million plan, which the developers believe can be in place by August 2023. The plan was proposed by Jan Zeederberg, a founder and director of Bondev, the developer of Midstream estate.
“What makes Midstream unique is that it has a smart grid connected to an 11/88kV Eskom substation with metering and control equipment using fibre optic communication to all houses. Everything that falls within Midstream is one grid, managed by Midstream Electrical Supplies (MES),” Zeederberg said.
It means that Midstream has a single grid it can control, giving it the flexibility needed to address load-shedding. Around 1000 houses already have solar systems installed. Additional stand alone solar plants will be built on vacant land by independant power producers, adding capacity. “The next step is to build an 8MVA battery storage system to protect residents against load-shedding up to stage 4,” said Zeederberg.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: Midstream Estate Facebook
