According to Nicola Rump, principal environmental scientist at SRK Consulting, the trend will contribute towards the country’s climate change commitments and improve air quality – which is increasingly of concern, along with the associated health impacts, in some parts of the country.
“With stricter standards in recent decades, stewardship of our water resources can also be improved as we move toward renewable energy,” she said.
Last year, South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP) progressed with the awarding of preferential bidder status to eight private energy producers.
“Using sources ranging from liquified natural gas (LNG) and diesel (mainly as back-up) to solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and battery energy storage systems (BESS), these bids showed that the cost gap between renewable and fossil fuel energy generation had narrowed,” she said. The RMIPPPP called for bids to supply 2000 MW to meet the immediate electricity supply gap, and another 11 813 MW from various energy sources.
Read the full article in Energize Magazine
