Exploring new energy
CLIMATE CRISIS: ROCKY TRANSITION FROM COAL POWER TO RENEWABLES
Load shedding will continue to plague the country ‘until we decarbonise our electricity sector’, warns energy expert.
In the coming weeks, environmental organisations will be holding their breath while they wait for bid documentation for 2 000MW of emergency power to be released.
The mineral resources and energy department budget vote address delivered by Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane on 21 July announced that the emergency power programme unlocks R250 billion in investment opportunities for, among others, the renewable energy and storage sector.
This will allow the department’s 2019 integrated resource plan for electricity (IRP) to be implemented, as soon as energy regulator Nersa makes a decision on the second Section 34 determination.
Renewables, liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas and fracking are being explored to take pressure off Eskom’s overburdened power grid.
But despite renewable energy potentially being relied on more for emergency power, Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaigner Nhlanhla Sibisi said this would not fix a broken system. Load shedding would continue to plague the country “until we decarbonise our electricity sector, with the backdrop of the climate crisis still firmly in place”.
Sibisi told The Citizen that more than 90% of the country’s energy needs were satisfied by coal.
Many of the country’s coal plants will soon reach the end of their life span and with projections indicating a continually increasing demand for electricity, Sibisi emphasised that Eskom must transition completely to renewable energy.
“We are at a point where we need all the help we can to fix the technical and management challenges faced by Eskom.”
The solution means moving away from coal faster than the department’s aim to keep coal dominant in the energy mix for the next decade. This is a challenge when the IRP has imposed annual build limits on renewables until 2030, which it said “does not affect the capacity from wind or solar [photovoltaic] in any significant way”.
Sibisi said: “To date, global research has proven that renewable energy can provide grid stability and as Greenpeace, we believe this can be achieved by a 100% move towards renewables.”
But the road towards this transition is rocky.
One example is environmental justice service groundWork’s current court battle with Nersa and the department, after seeking explanations on 900MW of new coal capacity “already procured” according to the IRP, as well as a plan to introduce 1 500MW of new coal capacity to the grid.
Centre for Environmental Rights advocate Nicole Loser said this was not the time to be building new coal plants, especially when SA should be looking to save money where possible.
“South Africa has amazing renewable energy resources. Coal is more expensive than renewables and more detrimental to the health of people and the environment. Everything points to needing rational decision-making, by calling for clean, healthy and affordable energy,” Loser said.
She warned that “the longer we delay the transition, the more the country locks itself into fossil fuels that will be obsolete in the next few years. The sector is uncompetitive. Decisions like these lock South Africa out of a global conversation.”
GroundWork’s stance is that investing in new fossil fuel-based electricity resources will lock South Africa into higher greenhouse gas emissions for at least the next 30 years.
South Africa has amazing renewable energy resources