Opinion: Why should SA’s post-Covid-19 stimulus incorporate a big green-energy component?

Governments around the world are grappling with ways to reignite their economies and limit the duration of recessions precipitated by the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. South Africa is no... 

Opinion: Could coal miners be incentivised to support the transition to renewables?

Coal, which has been the workhorse of South Africa’s electricity system for generations, will continue to play a significant role for years to come. Those coal-fired power stations that remain in... 

Opinion: How can SA avoid high costs and great regret when procuring emergency power?

When released in October, the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 (IRP 2019) highlighted that South Africa would face an electricity capacity shortfall of between 2 000 and 3 000 Megawatts (MW) for the... 

Opinion: Is land a constraint to a renewables-led energy system in South Africa?

When the question arises as to what South Africa’s most abundant source of energy is, the usual answer is coal. South Africa has built almost its entire electricity system, as well as a good... 

Opinion: Why is SA in sweet spot for global corporate-led decarbonisation projects?

Several large multinationals, such as Google and Amazon, are actively procuring renewable energy as part of efforts to transition their operations away from fossil fuels. Typically, these companies... 

Opinion: Why do German households pay high electricity prices if renewables are cheap?

Germany’s electricity generation in 2019 year-to-date has been almost 47% based on renewables, a significant increase from only 9% in 2002. The cost of new renewables, specifically solar... 

Opinion: Could South Africa be the Saudi Arabia of green aviation fuel?

Until relatively recently, much of the world’s decarbonisation attention has been on the electricity sector. The focus was natural because, firstly, the sector is a large contributor to global... 

Opinion: Are renewable IPPs destroying Eskom?

The argument that the renewable-energy independent power producers (IPPs) are destroying Eskom financially is a gross misrepresentation. Fact is: the state-owned utility bought electricity form... 

Opinion: How could black SA ownership be increased in renewables projects?

The renewable-energy industry in South Africa is effectively at the very beginning of an S-curve. With 5% of South Africa’s electricity provided by renewables, the industry is nowhere near its... 

Opinion: How should SA’s gas infrastructure be configured for a least-cost power system?

As outlined in the previous Transition Talk column (see Engineering News July 12–18, page 51), while gas will become more important in South Africa’s future electricity system, its role should not... 

Opinion: How much gas is needed to support a power system led by renewables?

Imagine the planning of the electricity system as a builder who wants to build a sturdy wall at the lowest cost. In the old world, the cheapest way to construct such a wall was to use rectangular... 

Opinion: Why should South Africa champion electric vehicles?

South Africa’s industrial, transport, energy, trade and fiscal policies remain heavily geared towards the private automobile and, more specifically, ones powered by the internal combustion engine... 

Opinion: How should SA approach the procurement of least-cost power?

In the previous Transition Talk column (Engineering News May 17-23, 2019), I explored what it would take to depoliticize the process of drafting a rational Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for South... 

Opinion: How could South Africa depoliticise its electricity planning process?

As South Africans know all too well, the processes involved in drafting and approving an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity are emotive, opaque and highly political. It took nearly ten... 

Opinion: Can low-income homes be made to benefit from the energy transition?

In the previous Transition Talk column, I covered how South Africa’s world-class solar resource, together with falling solar photovoltaic (PV) panel costs, has made rooftop generation an... 

Opinion: How can embedded generators help close South Africa's power supply gap?

There has been no increase in overall electricity demand since South Africans first began experiencing load-shedding back in 2008. Yet the threat of rotational cuts remains, because of the... 

Opinion: If renewables are so cheap, why are we paying so much for them?

Hardly a week passes without a statement being made about the high costs of renewable energy in South Africa. Typically, the argument is made on social media and is framed to suggest that Eskom is... 

Opinion: If investment is the goal, what should SA’s electricity game plan be?

South Africa has correctly identified the lack of investment as a serious constraint to economic growth and job creation. President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to address the problem by reaching out... 

Opinion: If there are more jobs in renewables, why are coal miners so unhappy?

As outlined previously, an electricity system made up of solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, wind farms and flexible generators will employ at least 30% more people than a comparable energy-equivalent... 

Opinion: Are there really more jobs in coal than in renewables?

There is considerable support in South Africa for the notion that a transition in the electricity system from coal to renewable energy will trigger a jobs bloodbath at both Eskom and the Mpumalanga... 

Opinion: Will unbundling Eskom ensure a sustainable electricity system?

That Eskom needs to be restructured is no longer in question. In its current form, the organisation poses a systemic risk to the South African economy and is ‘too big to fail’. The real question is...