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The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality

Includes bibliographical references.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kernick, Gordon
Other Authors: Hibberd, Andrew Charles Michael
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Energy Research Centre 2015
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access_status_str Open Access
author Kernick, Gordon
author2 Hibberd, Andrew Charles Michael
author_browse Hibberd, Andrew Charles Michael
Kernick, Gordon
author_facet Hibberd, Andrew Charles Michael
Kernick, Gordon
author_sort Kernick, Gordon
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13262
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:07.214Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
publishDateSort 2015
publisher Energy Research Centre
publisherStr Energy Research Centre
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13262 The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality Kernick, Gordon Hibberd, Andrew Charles Michael Wlokas, Holle Sustainable Energy Engineering Includes bibliographical references. The Elundini municipality, situated in the interior Eastern Cape of South Africa, as with many other municipalities with a large portion of rural inhabitants, is beset with the challenge of needing to provide clean drinking water to these far lying people in an efficient and cost effective manner. Due to the large distances between villages as well as from any town or major infrastructure, supplying water via traditional pipe networks is not feasible. Historically, groundwater has been the water source of choice and abstracted via the use of diesel powered borehole pumps. These pumps are however noisy, require constant maintenance and are associated with high running costs associated with the ever increasing price of fuel. Not only is the fuel expensive in itself, but it is also required to be transported long distance to the boreholes on a regular basis. This study then investigated how solar and wind powered borehole pumps compared with diesel powered options. This was done by assessing the natural resource potential of the region (wind and solar power) as well as the groundwater abstraction potential of a sample of villages. Notional solar, wind and diesel powered systems were then designed for each of the villages with each of their unique water supply requirements and then compared against one another with a life cycle cost analysis for each system being performed. The study found that, not unlike other similar studies in other regions of the world, that over their lifetime, wind and solar powered borehole pumps were cheaper than their diesel counterparts. This was especially true for solar powered options as the solar resource for the region is superior to that of wind. Although traditionally shunned due to high capital costs, solar powered pumps have been commercialized in recent years and are now only marginally more expensive than diesel options. Wind pump capital costs are still prohibitively high, although running and maintenance costs are low. For the Elundini municipality however, and its relatively poor wind resources, this would not be a recommended technology. 2015-07-02T08:27:28Z 2015-07-02T08:27:28Z 2014 Master Thesis Masters MSc (Eng) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13262 eng application/pdf Energy Research Centre Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Sustainable Energy Engineering
Kernick, Gordon
The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
title_full The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
title_fullStr The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
title_full_unstemmed The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
title_short The potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the Elundini Municipality
title_sort potential of renewable energy for rural groundwater supply in the elundini municipality
topic Sustainable Energy Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13262
work_keys_str_mv AT kernickgordon thepotentialofrenewableenergyforruralgroundwatersupplyintheelundinimunicipality
AT kernickgordon potentialofrenewableenergyforruralgroundwatersupplyintheelundinimunicipality