South Africa could produce a lot more renewable energy: here's what it needs
South Africa's power utility, Eskom, has not been able to provide a steady electricity supply for several years. At the start of the 2022 winter, the utility warned the public to expect up to 100 days of rolling power outages. At the end of June, there was at times a 6,000 MW shortfall in electricity supply, corresponding to about 20% of the evening peak demand.
While there is consensus that new electricity generating plants are urgently needed to minimise power outages, there are radically differing views on how this is best achieved. The official electricity plan approved three years ago is already out of date. Its implementation is furthermore two years behind schedule.
One widely promoted view is that increasing electricity generating capacity requires grand-scale new renewable energy developments. In 2020 the electricity generated from renewables amounted to a mere 10.5% of the South African national total. This will have grown to about 11.5% as more plants have been completed.
The country's power generation is still dominated by coal. And it's lagging far behind the global trend toward clean energy.
Most people associate renewable energy exclusively with wind and solar energy, but it includes all technologies that don't process non-replaceable fossil fuels. Fossils include coal, oil, gas and minerals (for example, the uranium used in nuclear energy).
Hydropower stations, which extract electricity from the downhill flow of water, are a renewable energy source. This is the major source of electricity in water-rich countries like Norway, but only a limited option in drier climates. When water needs to be retained in dams during times of drought, then no electricity production is possible.
As South Africa is drought-prone, a significant increase in local hydropower generation (currently at 3% of the total) is not feasible.
Other renewable energy technologies like geothermal and tidal power generation work in select localities that are not common in South Africa.
This leaves wind and solar. These sources currently comprise about 8% of South Africa's energy mix.
Wind and solar power
Wind and solar power are very attractive because:
• South Africa has some of the world's best solar and wind resources. Solar and wind plants already produce electricity very effectively in many cloudier and less windy environments than in South Africa.
• Solar and wind plants can be built in less than two years. But the pre-construction processes – bidding, approvals and such – stretch completion times by at least another year.
• Running costs are very low as there are effectively no fuel purchases. Solar and wind technology prices have dropped very sharply in the past ten years. The cost – including building and other expenses – of solar and wind electricity is now well below the corresponding costs for electricity from gas, nuclear and even coal.
• Their extremely low carbon emissions mitigate global warming and make solar and wind energy attractive to investors.
Solar and wind power, however, have obvious drawbacks. The main one is that