Think big for a big future

It’s all well and good that the government is calling for private sector tenders to supply 9GW of green

— wind and solar — power, plus 3GW of gas power. When this power comes on stream, we should be in a position to escape load-shedding.

However, this power is far less than we need for ongoing growth up to, say, 2050. To ensure our longer-term economic future, we will need, at a minimum, an additional 50GW of green power in the next decade.

This is beyond the capacity of the private sector. Green power — whether wind or sun — costs $1bn or more per gigawatt installed. Wind is somewhat more expensive than sun. It makes sense to split the 50GW equally between wind and sun to maximise power availability over the 24- hour day.

We are therefore talking about at least $50bn. Together with grid expansion and some battery storage, we would need to find some $75bn. At the present exchange rate, this is R1.35-trillion. This level of investment needs to be undertaken by the state. It is beyond the capacity of the private sector. We would need loans to fund this project, as it is far outside the capacity of the present tax system. However, installing 50GW of new power would facilitate rapid growth, enabling the tax take to rise, so that the loan could be discharged over, say, 20 years.

A body such as the World Bank should be able to fund such a project — and it should be willing to do so. This investment would move SA away from carbon-intensive energy while facilitating longterm growth in SA and beyond.

We need to think big for a big future. That future is green energy.

Willem Cronje Cape Town