Into the wind
South Africa has 6 505 MW of installed renewable energy capacity that generates power for the national electricity grid, according to Eskom.
Just over half (53%) of it is wind and 44% is solar, mostly photovoltaic, but there is some concentrated solar power (CSP).
For comparison, Kusile, which is one of the biggest of South Africa’s 14 coal power stations, has installed capacity of 4 800 MW.
Just under 18-million megawatt-hours (or 18 terawatt hours) of electricity from renewables was generated in 2024, nearly two-thirds of it wind, Eskom reports.
One megawatt hour of electricity can power between 500 and 1 000 homes for an hour. A rough calculation shows that renewable energy in 2024 could have powered 12.5-million households for a month. That’s about 70% of the 17.5-million households in South Africa, according to the last census.
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