SAWEA voices support for Ramaphosa’s electricity security interventions
The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has applauded the numerous interventions outlined by President Cyril Ramaphosa to tackle South Africa’s energy crisis.
The association said on July 26 that it viewed the plan as being sharply focused on the key areas of concern, encompassing the improvement of State-owned Eskom’s energy availability factor through maintenance; bringing all available energy into the system quickly; accelerating new generation capacity; addressing bureaucratic blockages and liberalising the energy system.
By increasing the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme allocation for Bid Window Six (BW6) from 2 600 MW to 5 200 MW, Ramaphosa doubled the capacity outlined originally in this procurement round.
SAWEA said this was fundamentally needed to bring on new generation capacity quickly, and was in line with the sector’s advocacy efforts.
“To deliver on the required generation capacity, as outlined, we’d like to highlight the necessity to urgently address and prioritise the grid capacity challenges, as solutions will need to be advanced to ensure that the areas with the best wind and solar PV resources are unblocked,” SAWEA CEO Niveshen Govender said.
Further, in addressing the challenges of the BW5 procurement round, the association welcomed government's stated willingness to work alongside BW5 preferred bidders to accelerate the close of those projects.
SAWEA said it viewed the removal of the licensing cap for embedded generation projects as the next step to liberalise the energy market but that it would only make sense if it was applied to larger projects with the ability to wheel power through the network.
The association said environmental conservation remained a priority in the sustainable approach of including more renewable energy in the energy mix.
With this as the basis, SAWEA believed exemptions need to be allowed in the environmental framework processes to be applied to all technologies in areas of low environmental sensitivity.
“While we understand that these are temporary policy adjustments to overcome the effects of the energy crisis, we see this as the right steps to creating an open energy system that will attract more investment, create jobs and benefit the South African economy,” Govender said.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation