By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) draft report revealed that the renewable energy be maximised in South Africa, with the commission saying that the least expensive, widely known and quickest renewable energy sources should be added to the grid, which alludes to renewable sources backed by storage and peaking support.
South Africa battles its energy crisis, wind energy, which has seen a substantial increase in output due to winter storms, has been one of the most effective ways to mitigate potentially higher stages of load shedding.
This is while the year-to-date Energy Availability Factor at Eskom’s coal-fired power stations has decreased substantially from the 59.35% in 2022 to 53.77% in 2022.
There are several renewable energy projects in the pipeline that will be crucial for South Africa to address load shedding.
Detractors of the PCC draft report say that the push for renewable energy will put jobs at risk while also not meeting the country’s energy needs.
According to City Press, the critics – who are linked to the Freedom Foundation (Izwe Lami) and Truth in Energy – said that jobs in mining would be affected by the push to renewables.
“Much of the negative impact will strike in selected areas such as coal and uranium mining regions. There would be significant knock-on effects for many, resulting in jobless people moving to other areas seeking work. This would generate a socioeconomic nightmare,” the critics said.
The critics also alleged that there are inaccuracies in the representation of the environmental impact of renewables, with wind farms taking 300 to 4,000 times more land to generate the same amount as nuclear power plants.
“Wind farms are typically on hills or ridges. They extract energy from the prevailing wind. The full long-term implications are speculative. There will be changing weather and climate conditions and patterns. Much has been said legitimately about impacts on birds and bats, including endangered high-flying species, but no attention has been given to impacts on wind-dependent nature, such as rainfall, crops, pollens, insects, moths, butterflies, seeds and the like,” they said.
The critics added that nuclear power is a far better source of clean energy that meets South Africa’s energy needs.
“[The report] is premised on ignoring nuclear power, which is by all objective criteria by far the cleanest, safest, greenest and most cost-effective option. The proverbial ‘cherry on top’ or ‘bonanza’ is that South Africa can supply its own needs easily and export uranium to many other countries,” they said.
The critics also noted that South Africa will still need to use non-renewables to keep the lights on in South Africa.
“Even then, backup dispatchable power such as gas or coal would be needed. There is an unfortunate and dishonest tendency to omit the fact that intermittent power sources must be accompanied by backup capacity. That is the true cost of ‘renewable’ power,” they noted.
Mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe has also lambasted renewable energy’s ability to solve load-shedding by saying that “lobbies for renewables must stop telling people that it is the solution”.
Mantashe gave an address at the Black Business Council Summit last week where he sharply criticised renewable energy, particularly those claiming it can solve load-shedding.
Renewables must be complemented by baseload energy supply in the form of coal, gas, or nuclear. “If not, we are heading for disaster”, said the minister.
“I’m not discouraging anybody; people must invest in renewables. But, lobbies for renewables must stop telling people it is the solution.”