Moving to renewable energy might hurt SA economy, experts say

Posted by Olerato Ramafsi on 28 September 2022

Transitioning South Africa to renewable energy can make or break our already ailing economy, the Presidential Climate Commission said during an online discussion hosted by the University of Free State on Tuesday.

Secunda power station: Picture: Flickr Commons/ Horst Vogel

The gathering aimed at finding solutions to implement power availability to SA citizens and combat power outages. Among the attendees were representatives from power utility Eskom and Business Unity South Africa.

Steve Nicholls, head of mitigation at the South African Presidential Climate Commission, stressed that the country’s move to an economy that is less reliant on coal needed to be done carefully. Employment as well as export opportunities are key drivers in the use of coal.

‘Energy and power, in particular, are really important parts of the ecosystem both from an employment perspective, particularly if you think regionally, so in Mpumalanga particularly, the vast majority of employment comes from the coal value chain and the power value chain but also nationally its an important contributor as coal is our second-biggest export value,’ Nicholls said.

carbon emissions in south africa are a concern for climate change

Picture: Getaway Gallery

The meeting took place days after Eskom’s CEO Andre De Ruyter announced the expansion of Cape Town’s Koeberg power plant by an extra 20 years. After being questioned about the use of nuclear power instead of the renewable energy which is being proposed during discussions, Ruyter said: ‘Eskom is not anti-nuclear; we are pro-nuclear. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be pursuing this life extension project.’

The project has been in the pipeline for years and De Ruyter attributes poor project and contract management as the leading contributors to the delay. Eskom’s general manager for strategy and planning, Matthew Mflathelwa, said that a key issue at present for the utility was to sustainably balance the energy demand and capacity.

‘The big take-away is there is a significant amount of new capacity that needs to be built and the capacity that is going to be built is predominantly going to be renewables. However, it is not the only additional infrastructure that is required, we need an energy mix that can respond and achieve adequacy for the future requirements,’ he added.

Eskom said about 60 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity were needed by 2030.

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