Lance Blaine, Chief Executive Officer of Redcap, acknowledged some positive strides in the wind power landscape in South Africa, over the last decade.
He was speaking at a Webinar organized by the SA Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) and German counterparts BWE today.
Some wins mentioned by Blaine, include lessons learnt by Government, NGOs, developers and landowners. He said Government has worked hard to unblock projects, such as work by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), to simplify the registration of projects. The developer first identifies the site for a wind farm, and management plans are determined prior to the registration of a project.
Blaine said the Presidency established a one-stop shop platform to create synergy and facilitate better communication, among Government departments.
Morongoa Ramaboa, Chief Communications Officer for SAWEA, reflected on a decade-long progress.
During 2010-2023, significant milestones were reached, such as the launch of bid window 5 & 6. This is significant because policy was introduced, to allowed the procurement of renewable energy. Bid window 5, resulted in the first procurement of 1608 MW of wind. Bid window 6, launched with 4.1GW of wind bids submitted, but no wind was procured.
The launch of the current bid window 7, closes on the 30 May 2024, and has allocated 32,000 MW of wind and 1800 MW of solar PV.
But challenges are stacked up against the sector. Santosh Sookgrim, Senior Technical Adviser at SAWEA, said the chief challenge is the lack of certainty on grid access allocation in wind resource rich areas.
With the process underway of investing in transmission and distribution as much as generation, power lines are urgently needed in areas where there is wind infrastructure. These include Cape Provinces (Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and the Western Cape).
A huge blow to the sector, is the revised contribution of wind in the draft IRP 2023 (Integrated Resource Plan to power up the country by 2030 and beyond).
Sookgrim said the new IRP accommodates 3,8 GW of wind by 2030. This falls short of the initial target set by the old IRP, of 1,6GW of wind per year, until 2030.
SAWEA wants information feeding into the assumptions that led to different scenarios to be revised.
Although some wind energy is expected to come on stream this year, logistics in the construction of projects is a hurdle, including ports, vehicles, cranes etc.
He also said bottlenecks affecting operating assets such as shipping etc. call for a localization of manufacturing functions and up-skilling the workforce.
About 150MW is expected to come on stream in 2024. About 2,842 MW is urgent private wind energy to be completed by 2025.
Dr Tobias Bischof-Niemz, of Enertrag SE, one of the largest renewable energy producers in Germany, agrees the draft IRP 2023, needs revision.
Of numerous factors substantiating the revision, is the price factor. He argues that renewable energy is cheaper than the 49 cents Eskom is currently buying coal plus the environmental levy and other costs, amount to about 85 cents per kilowatt per hour (kWh). Wind is at 60 cents kWh.
Enertrag has implemented close to 2GW of wind energy in Germany, France and Poland. About 15 GW of wind/solar is in the pipeline for Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Ghana, South Africa, Vietnam, Namibia, and Uruguay.
Picture of wind energy in SA: SAWEA
Front picture: Renewables now.