Bethlehem Hydro owns and operates two small hydro power plants situated in the

Dihlabeng Local Municipality Dihlabeng Local Municipality is an administrative area in the Thabo Mofutsanyane District of the Free State in South Africa. It was established in terms of Section 12 of the Local Government Structures Act, 117 of 1998, after the first general lo ...

(

Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality Thabo Mofutsanyana is one of the 5 districts of the Free State province of South Africa. The seat of Thabo Mofutsanyana is Witsieshoek. The majority of its 725 932 people speak Sesotho (2001 Census). The district code is DC19 Geography Neighbou ...

) in the Free State province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The scheme utilizes the water supplied to South Africa by the

Lesotho Highlands Water Project The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is an ongoing water supply project with a hydropower component, developed in partnership between the governments of Lesotho and South Africa. It comprises a system of several large dams and tunnels thr ...

, which releases water into the

As River The As River is a tributary of the Liebenbergsvlei River in the eastern Free State, South Africa. Since 1968 it is impounded by the Sol Plaatje Dam (formerly: Saulspoort Dam) at its confluence with the latter river, just east of Bethlehem. Its ...

via a tunnel outlet near the town of Clarens. South Africa has limited potential for

hydro energy Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

due to low average annual rainfall making projects like Bethlehem Hydro rare. The project was identified in 1999 and developed by NuPlanet Project Development. The two power stations in the scheme will cut back

carbon dioxide emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...

by 33,000 tons per year by reducing the demand for traditional

fossil-fuel power station A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, wh ...

Sol Plaatje Power Station

The Sol Plaatje Power Station was the first commercial small hydro power station constructed in

for 22 years. It was commissioned in November 2009 and is located close to

Bethlehem, Free State Bethlehem is a town in the eastern Free State province of South Africa that is situated on the Liebenbergs river (also called Liebenbergs Vlei) along a fertile valley just north of the Rooiberg Mountains on the N5 road. It is the fastest growin ...

. The power station was constructed next to the existing dam wall of the Sol Plaatje dam. The power station has an installed capacity of 3 MW and has a double regulated horizontal axis

Kaplan turbine The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to ach ...

Merino Power Station

The Merino Power is a run-of-river type hydro power station situated 10 km downstream from the tunnel outlet of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The power station consists of an intake weir, a 600 m canal and a power house with a double regulated horizontal

. The power station has an installed capacity of 4 MW.

References

External links

Bethlehem Hydro Website

NuPlanet Website
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