We need renewables

IT APPEARS to me that in the debate about our energy future, those people who are pro baseload energy only see the negative side of renewable energy.

I challenge anyone to consider the following facts:

Wind and solar can be installed relatively quickly, with private money and will provide electricity cheaper than any new coal or nuclear plant.

Eskom currently implements routine weekend load shedding to “replenish water and diesel stocks”. This implies that there is insufficient night time baseload capacity to fully recharge the pump storage schemes and that they are running diesel turbines outside of peak demand times.

The drawback of wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) is that these provide an inconsistent supply so they require either storage capacity or diesel turbines that can be brought online quickly when needed. Pump storage systems not fully recharged at night can be recharged by excess wind or solar PV during the day. Diesel generators can simply be switched off when the wind blows or the sun shines.

By switching off diesel turbines Eskom can stop producing electricity at R3/unit and buy it in for R1/unit.

If wind and solar are used to fully recharge the pump storage schemes on a daily basis there will be more capacity to meet evening demand.

So why is Eskom only accepting 1 400MW of the offered 5 000MW of wind and solar energy?

Steven Versfeld

Ceres