The reaction to the government’s recent energy roadmap has been mixed, with some parties critical of the proposal and others cautiously optimistic.
The Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, this past month presented the country’s ambitious Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2019, which consists of additional capacity of 1500MW coal, 2500MW hydro, 6000MW photovoltaic, 14400MW wind, 2088MW storage and 3000MW gas.
The government says due to the expected decommissioning of about 24100MW of coal power plants in the period 2030 to 2050, “attention must be given to the path adopted to give effect to the energy mix and the preparation work necessary to execute the retirement and replacement of these plants”.
The country’s IRP comes at a time, globally, when renewable energy is taking up an increasing share in the energy mix.
Power utilities such as Eskom are increasingly facing an urgent need to supplement their traditional energy sources with renewables.
At the presentation in Pretoria, Mantashe said renewable energy combined with storage presented an opportunity to produce distributed power.
In addition to sun and wind resources, South Africa has some of the world’s largest high-grade resources in at least six key commodities that play a critical role in the global energy storage sector.
They include vanadium, platinum, palladium, nickel, manganese, rare earths, copper and cobalt, which have the potential to create new industries and localisation across the value chain.
“The IRP 2019 continues to make provision for significant roll-out of renewable energy and storage. Eskom is already working on a utility scale-battery storage, which will allow us to assess the benefits to our power system as we diversify the energy mix,” Mantashe said.
However, in some quarters the announcement was criticised for not being ambitious enough. Environmental organisations condemned the government’s plan for its reliance on coal.
The Life After Coal Campaign and Greenpeace Africa lambasted the plan, saying they were appalled to note that the new IRP included 1500MW of dangerous, expensive and unnecessary new coal-based electricity: 750MW in 2023 and another 750MW in 2027.
However, the renewables sector took a cautiously optimistic view.
South African Wind Energy Association chief executive Ntombifuthi Ntuli said: “We are happy with the wind energy’s apportionments in the energy mix, as we transition to a clean energy future. With the bulk of the increase coming from renewable sources, it is a promising sign for our country as it faces pressure to reduce its carbon emissions and provide cheaper power.”
She added: “With 14.4GW of wind having been allocated in the IRP, giving wind energy 18% of the total capacity allocation, the wind industry views the commitment to 1.6 GW per annum as a positive step by the government as this allocation will allow original equipment manufacturers and first-tier suppliers to commit to local manufacturing of certain components, which contributes directly to job creation.”
The solar photovoltaic industry believes the IRP provides potential developers, investors, operators and equipment manufacturers active in the sector with a moderate level of certainty that opportunities in the sector will materialise in the near to medium term.
South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (Sapvia) chairperson Wido Schnabel said: “We believe that this pragmatic approach, if based on clear principles, will in time result in an even larger future allocation to cheaper and easier-to-deploy renewable energy projects.
“We will continue to engage the minister to find mechanisms to smooth out the gaps presented in 2024, 2026 and 2027, where no solar PV is envisaged to be added to the grid.”
Sapvia says it is also pleased to see the allocation to embedded generation increased from 200MW to 500MW annually, which has the potential to unlock significant new investment.
In the same week that the minister presented the IRP, Eskom threw some crazy curve balls to the nation.
First was the announcement in Parliament by chairperson and acting chief executive Jabu Mabuza that the power utility expected another multibillion-rand loss. As if that was not enough, the country was plunged
into darkness as load shedding struck again.
With all this, perhaps it’s time for South Africa to start taking notes from its BRICS counterpart, China.
Two years ago, the Asian giant announced that it would invest $360billion (R5.2trillion) in renewables by next year and scrap plans to build 85 coal-fired power plants.
In March this year, China was already exceeding official targets for energy efficiency, carbon intensity, and the share of clean energy sources. In June, China’s energy regulator, the National Energy Administration, unveiled new measures to reduce the country’s dependence on coal.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), these are just the latest indicators that China is at the centre of a global energy transformation, which is being driven by technological change and the falling cost of renewables.
This is an area that South Africa can benchmark with the Chinese to achieve similar efficient results.
The Chinese aren’t only investing in renewables and phasing out coal. The country now accounts for a growing share of global energy demand. WEF says this means that the Chinese economy’s continuing shift toward service- and consumption-led growth will reshape the resources sector worldwide.
Notwithstanding that the global growth in energy demand is slowing, China’s share of that demand is increasing, according to WEF.
The Geneva-based international organisation says that by 2035, China may account for 28% of the world’s primary energy demand, up from 23% today, whereas the US could account for just 12% by 2035, down from 16% today.
There are lessons South Africa can adopt with China’s help considering the growing ties between the two nations.
* Zulu is a Johannesburg-based business freelance writer with a specialisation in the tech industry.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.