Future bright for renewable energy

Sun, sea and waves — the perfect mix for a coastal holiday. Throw in wind, tides and water, and they provide a renewable energy blend that is also the perfect solution to ease South Africa’s reliability on unreliable and highly-pollutant Eskom energy.

Prashaen Reddy, on the board of the SA National Energy Association (SANEA) and a partner at global management consultancy Kearney, which has a strong energy focus, said the outlook for renewable energy was bright.

The department of mineral resources & energy seemed to be moving closer to allowing municipalities to sidestep Eskom and buy directly from independent producers.

Gwede Mantashe, minister in charge of energy, gave the public until June 4 to comment on the draft proposal that would allow municipalities to source their own power.

In February, the electricity independence concept was mooted by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the state of the nation address. At the time he stressed that municipalities had to be in good financial standing to participate.

However, in the last municipal audits only 18 were clean, which would narrow the field. Cutting the country’s reliance on Eskom dates back many years,  Reddy said, without any real results.

“I think there is a now a real commitment to renewables, with the government target of 24% renewable by 2030, up from the current 6%.

“In addition there is a target to reduce coal-powered supply from 70% to 45%. For renewables to exploit this supply relaxation would involve sourcing the money to achieve it, and this remains one of the biggest hurdles.”

Based on international research by Kearny’s 40 offices around the globe, a successful renewable sector in SA would depend a cutting red tape and allowing unrestricted competition without Eskom holding all the good cards.

Though the High Resolution Wind Energy Resource Map, released last year, showed that the Eastern Cape area nestling close to Lesotho had the consistent wind, ideal for turbines, getting power from the mountainous region to areas that needed it was a problem.

“Providing private transmission infrastructure is financially prohibitive, but this begs another question: does the grid belong to Eskom, or does it belong to South Africans through government?”   Reddy asked.

“There should be a focus on smaller plants which are much more cost-effective and have the agility to be relocated to areas of demand. This would enable suppliers to focus on smaller towns, villages and remote communities.”

Reddy said renewable suppliers need unfettered and straightforward access to the power grid.

They should also be allowed to compete in projects that have the greatest chances to progress economically, he said.

Renewable’s intermittency has long been Eskom’s argument for not allowing it into the supply chain, but more and more countries have proved that this is surmountable.

“SA’s best benchmark nation is India. We can learn a lot from it, despite the obvious differences in size.

“It is now producing the world’s cheapest solar energy. Average solar prices from large-scale installations in India were less than a third of Canada, which has the highest solar price.

“India’s lower service and labour outlay have contributed to a dramatic fall in the investment needed to set up large-scale solar power-generating projects.

“Between 2010 and 2018, solar plant setup costs in India fell by 80%.”

India success adds to solar now accounting for 55% of all new renewable power-generating capacity.

While SA has an abundance of renewables, aside from geothermal, Kearny believes SA immediate future lies with solar and wind.

“We have superb supplies of both and we must use them,”  Reddy said.