Alan Brent

• BEng, BPhil, MEng, MSc, MPhil, PhD
• Professor at Victoria University of Wellington

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems harness the sun's energy to generate high temperatures applications. The Beam-Down CSP system, which redirects sunlight to a ground-level receiver, offers flexible receiver designs. ▪ Fluidised bed solar receivers are ideal for this configuration due to their ability to handle high flux densities and temperatu...

Concerns about the impact of climate change and the need for stabilising a global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius are driving the requirement for the allocation of the global budget of GHG emissions to various stakeholders. In parallel to the drive for countries to make commitments towards decarbonisation, sector decarbonisation traject...

The chapter shows the contribution of the practical framework in attaining sustainable development goal number seven (SDG7) – enabling clean electricity access for remote communities – and supporting the Sustainable Energy for All initiative of the United Nations, and the Smart Village initiative of the IEEE – to improve the resilience of these com...

Globally, the importance of sustainable development is recognized due to a number of interconnected social, environmental, and economic challenges. One of the key tenets of sustainable development is the introduction of clean energy, and specifically renewable energy technologies (RETs). To accelerate the adoption of RETs, however, requires the rat...

There is an emerging scholarship that criticises the conceptualisation of urban informality from a deficit view and emphasises that informality constitutes a way of life, a practice in its own right. We argue that energy is part of the informal way of life and that energy transitions need to take into account the specificities of urban informality...

The complexities that are inherent in electricity value chains are non-linear in nature and they require unconventional modelling methods, such as system dynamics. This paper provides an overview of the system dynamics method applied for obtaining an understanding of the impact of electric-bus, -car, and -truck market penetration on carbon emission...

This paper focuses on the development of a participatory planning approach for local energy sustainability. The characteristics of a complex problem were reviewed to establish that the problem of sustainable energy at a local government level is complex. In order to better manage complex problems, the literature shows that soft operational research...

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the development of zero-emissions, sustainable energy systems utilising the potential of hydrogen energy technologies. However, the improper long-term economic assessment of costs and consequences of such hydrogen-based renewable energy systems has hindered the transition to the so-called hyd...

Tourism, the third largest industry in the world, is worth US$ 1.4 trillion, and represents 10 per cent of the world’s GDP. Tourism is also responsible for five per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, of which hotels and other types of accommodation account for one per cent. In this context, a sustainable hotel strategy execution is essen...

The off-grid electrification of remote communities, by utilizing renewable energy technologies through the development of smart micro-grids, is necessary to realize the sustainable development goals. Optimal sizing of an isolated micro-grid is challenging as it needs to satisfy the electricity demand of the customers from a long-term perspective, w...

There has been growing interest in the development of sustainable energy systems using the potential of renewable energy sources. However, due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, they must be accompanied by appropriate storage devices to be optimally integrated into so-called smart micro-grid systems. The optimal design problem...

Quality education and schools have a key role to play in the sustainable development of society. Unfortunately, many remote communities in developing countries fail to enjoy access to quality education due to a lack of electricity, thereby interrupting regular school services in the villages. The main objective of the paper contributes to understan...

South Africa's renewable energy programme has been widely considered a success. Biomass is one of the selected technologies, on which capacity and tariff caps are set in place. It is unclear whether the price caps allow for sufficient profits for private role-players. The aim of the study is to investigate the potential profit margins for biomass p...

The recent signing of outstanding power purchase agreements (PPA’s), as part of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Program (REI4P) in South Africa (SA), was received with mixed reactions. While the renewable energy sector and agencies involved in sustainable development applauded the courage of the SA government, the signing was fierce...

CSP is highly dependent on water resources. Water resources have been shown to be both less abundant and more variable in high DNI areas. The water consumption of CSP varies according to design considerations and spatiotemporally varying conditions. Water-related risks threaten to further exacerbate the costs of CSP generation. Similarly, water dem...

Nearly all types of energy systems (such as power systems, natural gas supply systems, fuel supply systems, and so forth) are going through a major transition from centralised, top-down structures to distributed, clean energy approaches in order to address the concerns regarding climate change, air quality, depletion of natural resources, and energ...

Urban development in Africa is a very diverse and ambivalent phenomenon with aspects that do not fall neatly into global standards. Informal settlements therefore challenge governance by standards. We argue that quantifying and interrogating differences offers a better basis for governance. By drawing on a comparative analysis of three different in...

Recent reports from international energy agencies indicate that more than a billion of the population in the world is deprived of basic electricity provisions, confined mainly to the remote communities of developing nations. Microgrids are promoted as a potential technology for electricity provisions to off-grid rural communities, but have failed t...

Economic development shares interdependence with energy investment, a complex interaction of systems. Thus, advanced modelling tools are required to support the development of strategic integrated energy plans, inclusive of the technological complexities in the electricity value chain. This paper looks at a system dynamics modelling approach with e...

Approaches to providing sustainable energy in cities have generated considerable interest in academic andpolicy circles. The development of this body of work, however, has not shed much light on the modes of in-termediation that are needed to reconfigure urban energy systems towards sustainability in energy-poor coun-tries. This paper focuses on th...

A growing number of people in Africa still do not have access to electricity. This phenomenon threatens the realisation of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 7, pertaining to universal access to modern energy. Factors attributed to Africa's low electricity access include limited financial resources at the dispensation of governments t...

Over the past three decades, research in artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced a wide range of techniques and approaches that can be adapted or employed to solve complex electric power system problems (e.g. power system planning, operation, as well as transient stability and control), previously thought to be unsolvable without making several s...

The aim of providing affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all requires an in-depth understanding of the issues that affect energy access and energy fuel choice, particularly as related to urban informal settlements or slums. Within unequal societies, such as South Africa, a reliance on technical solutions to address access and i...

Efficient energy supply is a means for people to gain access to a wide range of energy-related services. In unmet energy markets where energy supply is inadequate or lacking, such services, and the resulting benefits, are seldom attained. This has prompted research on energy transition, specifically a transition to renewable energy, to rapidly diff...

The paper reviews the literature, over the last three decades, to map out the existing body of knowledge of the themes associated with the concepts of ‘eco-innovation’ and ‘green economy’. The aim is to better understand the cohesion, integration, inter- relatedness, evolution and exposure in the scientific literature of the concepts. A bibliometri...

The purpose of the research on which this article reports was to investigate how renewable energy forms part of the strategy of a local government, and to evaluate how participatory processes are utilised in the development and communication of this municipal strategy. The research was conducted with Hessequa Municipality, a local authority situate...

To meet its future energy demand, the government of South Africa set up an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) with the primary objective of determining its long-term electricity demand, and indicating how this demand should be met, in terms of generation type and timing. The IRP in 2010 presented the favoured energy generation techniques in SA, and it...

South Africa's political history, unique demographic profile, and economic growth drivers, present a challenge in adopting universal strategies and business models to plan for the impact of battery electric vehicles in the residential sector. This paper investigated battery electric vehicle (BEV) substitution of internal combustion engine vehicles...

The relevance of energy efficiency policy measures for renewable-rich countries could be different from those countries that have a limited share of renewables in their electricity generation mix, and are therefore likely to focus on low-carbon energy generation policies. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the energy efficiency initiativ...

This paper investigates how a change in a region’s energy cost share (ECS), a ratio of a region’s energy expenditure as a fraction of its gross domestic product (GDP), affects the region’s social and economic development. Nations from four regions of the world, namely Australasia, Europe, North America, and the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India,...

The recent signing of outstanding power purchase agreements with renewable energy independent power producers (IPPs) by the South African government suggests the need for an increase in the funding of solar energy research, development and innovations, to encourage an improvement in the technology push. In recent years, there had been several advan...

The rapid global growth in the use of renewable energy to reduce GHG emissions and mitigate climate change, through the inclusion of large amounts of PV and wind in existing electricity grids, has highlighted certain challenges. Most critically, their intermittent supply, necessitates flexible dispatchability from other generators in the grid. Curr...

The objective of the paper is to understand the integration costs of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in future energy generation scenarios for South Africa. The study used PLEXOS¹ to conduct a bottom-up hourly simulation, incorporating the high renewable energy scenarios of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for 2030, in which RET penetrations are...

The benefits of biofuels depend on the feedstock, conversion pathway and local context. This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and developments to provide foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, will reduce both the costs of biofue...

The rapid growth of urban informal settlements, or slums, poses a par ticular challenge for balancing developmental and environmental goals. In South Africa, high levels of inequality, pover ty, and unemployment contribute to widespread migration. The influx of migrant workers to cities, however, is rarely matched with adequate housing and infrastr...

Nearly 200 countries met in Paris in December 2015 and agreed on aligning their energy portfolios to the global greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. However, without using cutting-edge technology, the countries may not reach the sustainable development goals set by the Paris Agreement. Although there is no penalty for countries that fall short...

Compared to large-scale renewable energy systems, distributed systems have diffused relatively slowly in recent years, particularly in developing countries. In this study, we analysed the barriers to the diffusion of distributed photovoltaics in South Africa by applying the technological innovation system framework. More specifically, we carried ou...

A series of processes is now converging to force the issue of sustainability to drive South Africa’s low-carbon energy transitions. This raises the question of how a ‘sustainability transition’ framework can be conceptualised to address the challenge of low-carbon electricity transitions in South Africa. This paper, therefore, critically reviews th...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increase as mining companies transport ore over increased distances in opencast operations or extract ore from deeper levels in underground operations. The rising costs of energy sources and enhanced awareness of the impacts of GHG emissions support energy- and emission-reduction initiatives. This paper evaluates the...

Purpose This paper aims to present a new master’s programme for promoting energy access and energy efficiency in Southern Africa. Design/methodology/approach A transdisciplinary approach called “participatory integrated assessment of energy systems” (PARTICIPIA) was used for the development of the curriculum. This approach is based on the two em...

Benchmarks are often used to assist brewers in identifying improvement opportunities; but a comparison of water and energy performances in breweries is deficient without normalising for differences between facilities. The normalisation of water and energy use was subsequently investigated, using SABMiller breweries as a case study. Drivers of water...

Electricity plays a crucial role in the socio-economic development of any country. Developing countries, however, unlike their developed counterparts, do not have electricity markets that are fully satisfied, nor are they ‘laden’ with large-scale infrastructure that could create inertia about making the transition. The objective of this paper is to...

For South Africa, an increase in energy demand is associated with higher CO2 emissions. In order to overcome this challenge, the government started the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REI4P) to allow easy integration of renewable energy technologies into the existing energy mix. The country has an abundant solar r...

Municipalities and government at different levels are faced with the challenge of establishing energy policies and strategies for urban informal settlements, which are mostly located in marginal areas. This study undertook a literature review to examine the challenges of energy access and provision in urban informal settlements from a resource flow...

South Africa has experienced great uncertainty in its electricity supply sector. Many energy system modeling efforts have been undertaken. This is to determine the most appropriate energy mix and manage uncertainty. We review all available, relevant studies and summarize their results, modeling approaches, and input assumptions. From this, we try t...

To meet its future energy demand, the government of South Africa set up an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) with the primary objective of determining its long-term electricity demand, and indicating how this demand should be met, in terms of generation type and timing. The IRP in 2010 presented the favoured energy generation techniques in SA, and it...

The Western Cape Province government in South Africa has established the transition to a green economy as a high priority. The sustainable use of water resources has been identified as a critical necessity for such a green economy transition. The research summarised in this paper conceptualised the factors that relate to water resources, and that i...

In order to meet future goals in reducing the resulting carbon emissions from transport networks, vast investment in the development of a more energy-efficient and sustainable infrastructure is required. This study investigates the infrastructure implications of a green economy transition in the Western Cape Province of South Africa with a particul...

South Africa aims to generate 42 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy technology sources by 2030. Concentrating solar power (CSP) is one of the major renewable energy technologies that have been prioritised by South Africa, given the abundant solar resources available in the region. Seven CSP plants have been, or are being, built; thre...

South Africa’s electricity sector is currently pursuing a transition to sustainable energy. This paper aims to analyze the various frameworks pertaining to sustainability transitions, and more specifically, sustainable energy transitions (SETs); to subsequently develop a set of criteria for the South African regime by which to measure the country’s...

Studies for building designs exist both internationally and, to a lesser degree, in the South African context. However, there is limited understanding of the various types of low-cost buildings and their related energy flow patterns, as found within townships and other informal urban settlements within the City of Cape Town. This study thus develop...

The Western Cape Provincial government in South Africa has introduced a green economy framework, 'Green is Smart', to create a more sustainable economy. This framework stipulates plans for the Western Cape Province to implement more sustainable farming practices for food crop production. While sustainable farming practices will have benefits for th...

Electricity utilities throughout the world are responding to the increased uptake of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) in the household sector. Although the increase of decentralised solar PV is seen as progressive for sustainable development, it is not without financial implications for electricity utilities. There is a concern in South Africa that...

Concentrating solar power (CSP) offers the value proposition of being a baseload and dispatchable renewable energy technology. CSP significantly lags behind solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power by cumulative capacity and cost for a number of reasons including the complicated nature of the technology and the traditional inability of the technology...

The national government instated a mandatory blending policy to facilitate the uptake and establishment of a biofuels sector in South Africa. Uncertainty exists, however, regarding the implications and effects of producing biofuels within the Western Cape province, as part of a strategy of the province to transition to a green economy. This investi...

Increasing urbanisation and the proliferation of slums require a holistic understanding of the urban metabolism of cities. However, existing urban metabolic analyses exclude a detailed understanding of how urban slums function and contribute to biophysical, including energy, flows. This paper aims at filling this gap by critically investigating the...

Pressure is mounting on the wine industry to consider energy management interventions to, inter alia, reduce energy consumption – to be more competitive, become more self-reliant, and to reduce the carbon footprint of the sector. This paper then summarises the process that was undertaken to develop an appropriate energy management guideline for the...

Smallholder farmers in South Africa find it challenging to participate in the modern economy. Most of these farmers have limited access to credit and insurance, and to markets in which to sell their produce. This paper reviews ethnographic research data and argues that smallholder farmers struggle to take part in modern agricultural value chains in...

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the ‘levelised cost of energy’ metric used in electricity project development. This metric is widely used, because it is a simple metric to calculate the cost per unit of electricity for a given technology connected to the electricity network. However, it neglects certain key terms such as inflation...

The Western Cape Government in South Africa has identified the concept of a green economy as a way to transform the Province’s economy to one that is more sustainable from an economic, social, and environmental perspective. System dynamics modelling was used to develop a better understanding of the implications of different green economy policies a...

Practitioners and researchers have witnessed the rise of two new, yet very popular, concepts: business model innovation and shared value creation. To better understand their joint potential, this NBS South Africa report examines how business models can provide a platform for sustainability and shared value creation. This report provides a synthesis...

Prinsloo, G.J., Dobson, R.T., Brent, A.C. 2016. Scoping exercise to determine load profile archetype reference shapes for solar co-generation models in isolated off-grid rural African villages. Journal of Energy for Southern Africa, Vol.27, No.3. Cape Town. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-447X2016000300002 For many...

This paper assesses the different levels of uncertainty that affect the analysis of informal urban settlements and the implementation of upgrading policies, with a specific focus on electrification. The rapid growth of informal settlements in the cities of the Global South poses serious challenges to the management of energy systems, particularly w...

The economic situation of mining corporations operating in South Africa has in recent years created considerable challenges in staying globally competitive. One reason for this is the increase in average electricity costs from 7% to 20% of total operational expenses since 2007. Forecasts for the next decade predict that this development will contin...

Although the role and importance of innovation support in South Africa is a well-recognised concept on the national level, provincial governments have only recently started to debate, investigate and explore instruments through which innovation can be leveraged and supported regionally. Extant theory and practice is vague on providing support on ho...

Prinsloo, G.J., Dobson, R.T., Brent, A.C., Mammoli, A.A. (2016). Modelling and control synthesis of a micro-combined heat and power interface for a concentrating solar power system in off-grid rural power applications. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1734, Issue 1. p 130016-1 to 130016-9. doi: 10.1063/1.4949226 http://scitation.aip.org/content/...

Prinsloo, G.J., Dobson, R.T., Brent, A.C., Mammoli, A.A. (2016). Modelling and control synthesis of a micro-combined heat and power interface for a concentrating solar power system in off-grid rural power applications. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1734, Issue 1. p 130016-1 to 130016-9. doi: 10.1063/1.4949226 Concentrating solar power co-gene...

The WWF proposes a renewable energy vision scenario for South Africa as an alternative to the currently mandated policy which favors additional nuclear in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Current policy also blends additional coal, hydropower, renewables and gas turbine (open and combined cycle) capacity. We validated and refined the WWF scenario...

Research efforts using system dynamics to understand and evaluate societal and policy-related problems in Southern Africa are becoming essential. This paper undertook a systematic review to examine the extent of utilization of system dynamics in Southern Africa between 2003 and 2014. The results showed that system dynamics has been used, or referre...

Social networking platforms such as Facebook have become integrated into the milieu of modern-day social interactions. Facebook, one of the most prominent social networking platforms globally, is widely used as a primary medium for communicating and networking for personal, professional and recreational purposes. To date, studies have focussed on d...

International Association for Management of Technology, IAMOT 2008 Proceedings The supply of sustainable energy is crucial for poverty reduction and economic development in Africa. Such supply to the private sector and to households is necessary to improve productivity and efficiency and ensure that all members of society are economically active. F...

In South Africa, the projects for the first two rounds of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) have reached financial closure, and construction and commissioning has commenced, on all of the twenty-seven PV sites. The question remains as to what can be expected from these PV facilities in 2015 should all o...

Technology roadmaps are critical for decisions pertaining to technology development. They have been utilised in the renewable energy sector to assist in filtering alternative technology options in order to support energy policy formulation, energy security and energy independence, among others. However, solar aided power generation is a recent conc...

This study is concerned with the modelling and synthesis of an off-grid solar thermal trigeneration and intelligent smartgrid control system for applications in rural Africa, South America, India and China. This off-grid concentrated solar micro-Combined Cooling Heat and Power (mCCHP) system is capable of delivering a wide spectrum of energy (elect...

South Africa׳s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (the REI4P) is an extensive initiative to install 17.8 GW of electricity generation capacity from renewables – wind, solar, biomass, biogas and hydropower – over the period 2012–2030. Although at the outset the REI4P seemed an expensive option, designed only to deflec...

Education in the field of engineering management is rapidly increasing worldwide, and particularly in developing countries that are industrialised. In South Africa, Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria respond to the need for these skills through dedicated postgraduate programmes. The programmes link the concept of adult learning...

South Africa may have a generation capacity shortage in the near future. The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) is playing an important role in creating generation capacity to fulfil future demand requirements. This investigation focused primarily on identifying the problems that have been experienced with p...

The paper demonstrates the principles of systems dynamics modelling with the use of a relatively simple model. The model was developed during a course on Systems Dynamics Modelling offered by the School of Public Leadership of Stellenbosch University in 2012. It was intended as an exercise in the application of the modelling techniques and is by no...

The South African solar resource is vast. By utilising this resource effectively, concentrating solar power (CSP) offers the ability to efficiently store thermal energy until needed for electricity generation. This technology can therefore assist the total electricity system to link demand and supply. Nevertheless, CSP is still entering the commerc...

Modelling approaches are utilised to understand complex and dynamic issues, which are characteristic of the South Africa power sector, especially since the sector has been at the centre of green economy debates. This paper thus draws on a system dynamics approach that captures and represents the dynamic behaviour of transforming the power sector wi...

The paper provides an overview of the attractiveness of the global concentrating solar power (CSP) industry, analyses South Africa's current capabilities in developing a CSP manufacturing capacity, and then makes recommendations regarding policy measures and an associated industry roadmap for developing a competitive CSP industry in South Africa. T...