Cape Town is the best place to harness wind and sun energy

The majority of South Africa’s new renewable energy projects will be located in the greater Cape Town area, with its abundant potential to tap into sun and wind energy.

Of the 28 independent power producers of wind and solar energy that were successful in the first bidding process of the Department of Energy, 24 will be located in South Africa’s Northern, Eastern and Western Cape. The other four projects are earmarked as one in the Free State, one in North West Province and two in Limpopo.

The first preferred bidders for the renewable energy Independent Power Producers (IPP) programme were announced on 7 December by Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters, during the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) in Durban during November and December.

COP17 was hailed as successful after developed and developing countries committed to a new legally binding deal to reduce emissions, with a date set for 2015.

With the new green projects, a total of 1 415 megawatts of clean energy could become available for South Africa’s growing energy demands by no later than 2016. The IPP programme has a further 2 209MW in renewable projects available in the second window of allocations, which will be concluded in March 2012. The South African government has set itself an overall target of 3 725MW of energy generated from large-scale green technology by 2025.

Sun and wind energy

The majority of the projects in the first batch of allocations aims to tap into the abundant sun energy available in South Africa, with 18 photovoltaic solar projects and two concentrating solar power projects scheduled to commence during the latter part of next year. This will bring in a total of 781MW of solar energy to the power grid.

The bid process awarded eight new wind energy projects for South Africa. Not surprisingly, the Eastern Cape – notorious for its extremely windy conditions – will see the erection of five new wind farms in the very near future: these at Oyster Bay, Van Stadens and Jeffrey’s Bay on the coast, and two inland at Cookhouse and Molteno.

Another two wind farms will be located in the Western Cape: at Dassiesklip and Hopefield; and one will be erected at Noblesfontein in the Northern Cape.

Upon completion, the first-phase wind projects will add a combined total of 634MW of wind energy, with the 135-megawatt Cookhouse farm and the 133-megawatt Jeffrey’s Bay farm the two largest.

Opening up the energy mix

For its part, the IPP programme stems from the government’s desire to broaden the energy mix of the country. In May last year, the Department of Energy promulgated the 2010 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the country’s blueprint on the energy mix for the power sector in the period running up to 2030.

A critical part of the IRP is to bring private green energy producers into the fold, with the IPP programme aimed at doing just that and the bidding process forming part hereof.

Currently, state-owned Eskom is South Africa’s dominant supplier of coal-based energy, providing over 90% of the country’s energy needs. South Africa has only one nuclear plant, at Koeberg.

With global sentiment moving ever more strongly toward renewable energy, the South African government has set out its green technology interventions through the New Growth Path framework. At the same time, its “National Climate Change Response White Paper” sets out its vision for an effective response to climate change going into the future.

The white paper confirms that South Africa is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions as a result of its coal-based economy, as compared to that of other developing countries on the African continent.

The latest “Greenhouse Gas Inventory” (base year 2000) found that electricity generation contributed just under 40% of total emissions, while industrial process emissions constituted around 14% of total emissions in the country.

At the recent COP17, President Jacob Zuma spelled out South Africa’s mitigation approach: “At COP 15 in Copenhagen, we announced our commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 34% in 2020 and by 42% in 2025, with support from developed countries with regard to finance, technology and capacity-building.”

Leading up to COP17, a landmark Green Economy Accord was signed between the government, trade unions, the community constituency and the business community in which everyone committed to a greener economy for South Africa.

In the process, the partners envisage creating 300 000 green jobs by 2020 and promoting conditions for the poor in particular.

Emily van Rijswijck

MediaClubSouthAfrica