Energy efficiency and Demand Side Management Program ... - Eskom

6.1.2 Environmental Aspects
Environmental aspects of the program can be evaluated similarly as the engineering aspects, which
are set out in Table 2. Issues can be evaluated including air, water, atmosphere,
biodiversity/ecosystem degradation, and land use amongst others. Each issue will be evaluated by
certain criteria from properly chosen POET related indicators. For example, the criteria to evaluate
air can be the emissions of NOx and SOx, particulates, NMVOCs, heavy metals including mercury,
radio nuclides, etc. Each criterion can be further broken down in terms of P, O, E, T indicators in case
that the program stakeholders need these detailed evaluations. For instance, the emission of NOx
and SOx can be considered from the POET perspective such as the amount of emissions (P); the
interactions of the NOx and SOx emission with other system components including CO2, production,
energy consumption, etc. (O); the absorption process and equipment for NOx and SOx (E); and the
mechanism which cause the NOx and SOx emission and the relevant technology adopted to reduce
or absorb the NOx and SOx emission (T). Similarly, for the evaluation criteria of other issues such as
water and atmosphere the POET indicators can be applied again. Program evaluators need to choose
evaluation criteria which meet best the purpose and content of a program. The following are
examples of evaluation criteria.
Evaluation criteria for water cover direct water consumption of plant, water use in fuel chain,
contamination at plant and in fuel chain including acid mine drainage (AMD) to aquifers;
Evaluation criteria for atmosphere can cover greenhouse gas (GHS) emissions in the entire
production cycle (including fuel chain, transport of fuel or sorbent as well as uranium
processing and enrichment done in South Africa);
Evaluation criteria for biodiversity or ecosystem degradation will be land degradation (land
pollution via air or water is not double counted here, e.g. acid rain involves additional impact
of SOx and NOx, beyond air pollution impacts on human health); and degradation of water
catchments (including wetlands; impacts on sensitive ecosystems and species);
Evaluation criteria for land use will consider footprint of plant (e.g. in the project area of in
wind farms , turbines and access roads have a footprint about 5% ‐10% of the total project
area and solar farms could accommodate agricultural activity); footprint of fuel supply
including land for mining (while eventual rehabilitation is a theoretical possibility, other
productive utilisation is precluded for a substantial period).
Note that an environmental impact assessment needs to consider cumulative impacts of the factors
evaluated in the energy system, while those factors which do not have cumulative impacts can be
ignored. Visual, noise and dust pollution are not included as they do not accumulate in the same way
as impacts considered above, they are much more site‐specific and visual impact is highly subjective;
it is considered that such impacts will be adequately covered by Environmental Impact Assessment
and Environmental Management Plans, and do not serve for significant differentiation amongst
technology or scenario options.
Note further that some programs focus only on electrical energy savings, and usually the energy
consumption will be a performance indicator to evaluate these programs. These programs also have
positive impacts to the environment and the reduced CO2, SOx, and NOx can be calculated from the
amount of energy saved, thus these emission indicators should not be double counted in the
corresponding program evaluation. There are also programs with the only purpose of emission
reduction. For these programs, the performance indicators such as the amount of CO2, SOx and NOx
emitted into the air will play a key role in the evaluation and thus are highly weighted in calculating
the scores, while the energy consumption indicator will play a less important role and will be
weighted much less. For programs which focus on both the energy saving and emission reduction,
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