Eskom, the South African state owned electricity generator, recently announced that it has budgeted a billion dollars over the next ten years for a demonstration and pilot concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. However, moving from budget to implementation is proving more difficult!
Why Concentrated Solar Power
Two of the widely used alternatives for collecting the suns energy are the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant where sunlight is focussed on a receiver in which a circulating working fluid is heated and used as the heating media for a conventional power station and the photo voltaic (PV) plant where sunlight is converted directly into electrical energy.CSP’s main advantage is that the heat in the working fluid can stored to allow electricity generation when the sun doesn’t shine. Its disadvantages are it needs large quantities of water for cooling and it doesn’t generate electricity on cloudy days.
The advantage of PV systems is that sunlight is directly converted to electricity and power is generated on cloudy days. However, storage is more difficult with pumped hydro storage on the grid probably being the only practical system for large plants.
The CSP option was probably selected as it integrates easily into the existing grid and makes good use of existing skills and expertise in electricity generation. The Northern Cape with its high solar radiation and access to the Orange River for water makes an appropriate site for a plant.
So What’s Holding it Back
The budget for the installation and operation of the CSP plant, is part of Eskom’s submission to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) for a massive electricity tariff increase of 45% a year for the next three years. It would seem that this part of the budget could get lost in the larger issues.
The Minister of Finance has admitted that the reason for Eskom needing to request such large tariff increases, was the failure by the ANC government to approve Eskom’s requests to continue growing its generation capacity in the late 1990s. Since the government needs economic growth to reach its objectives of poverty elimination and job creation it has to support Eskom’s tariff applications.
Conversely, the economic crisis has put a brake on spending in South Africa – the levels of default on loans has grown, reduction in car sales are threatening the industry and the housing market is flat. A significant increase in the electricity price will further decrease expenditure and reduce income tax revenue which is already expected to drop R 50 billion in 2010 after already dropping R 15 billion in 2009.
So the introduction of renewable energy and the installation of Eskom’s CSP Plant in particular. seem to be competing with many more pressing short term and political issues than carbon emissions.
This is the sixth in a series of posts that aim to provide information on the development of renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa in particular. These are
- Big Opportunity in Renewable Energy Identified in South Africa – Start of a Series of Posts
- Lesedi Biogas to Build $15m Manure-to-Power Plant in Heidelberg, South Africa
- South African Company to Import Waste Vegetable Oil to Produce Biodiesel
- French Agency Loans €120m for Small Renewable Energy Businesses in South Africa
- Clinton Climate Initiative Focusses on the South African Sun
Photo credit: By Solúcar on Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.
