Super solar technology clean twice over
WELL, well! Eskom now has excess capacity.
The Independent Power Producers are therefore being rebuffed on the basis that the electricity that IPPs are generating is too expensive for Eskom to purchase. While the spat between Eskom and the Independent Power Producers goes on, the Russian nuclear project continues to receive full thrust. No need to guess why.
Over R200 billion has been invested in renewable energy since 2011 and photovoltaic installations are now generating more than 1 000MW of electricity in South Africa. This is more electricity than Koeberg produces.
With the country using auctions to bid for clean power, Bloomberg points out that the cost of solar power has fallen from R3 288 a megawatt-hour to R786. Earlier producers understandably came in at a higher rate.
So why is Eskom not attempting to drive prices down further through more aggressive bidding?
While Eskom is spurning the IPPs, India, as the Cape Argus pointed out in Tuesday’s edition, is surging ahead in the procurement of solar power. Its Kamuthi facility in Tamil Nadu is now the largest solar power plant in the world with 2.5 million panels spread across 10km2.
The article further pointed out that India is undergoing a paradigm shift and embarking on one of the world’s most ambitious clean energy expansion programmes. Why are we not pursuing a similar paradigm shift? The fact that giant Kamuthi plant was completed in just eight months by the Adani group, eliminated overruns and most importantly all the many layers of corrupt profiteering. Solar is the route to go.
It is the technology of today. Its biggest attraction is not the decreasing cost and minimal pollution, wonderful as these are, but eliminating opportunities for the connected land sharks ready to make a massive kill. Solar is clean twice over.