The full feasibility study into South Africa’s proposed 5 000 MW solar park project, which could be developed in phases in the Northern Cape, should be completed by the end of 2012 and could stimulate the development of a larger solar corridor across Southern Africa, a Department of Energy (DoE) official said on Monday.

Addressing the Hydro Power Africa and Solar Energy Africa conferences in Johannesburg, COO Thandeka Zungu noted that sub-Saharan Africa was drenched by “bright sunlight” for an average of 325 days in a year. The South African government was, thus, keen to more fully exploit this solar resource within its national borders, as well as within the region more generally.

The DoE was currently undertaking a process of procuring some 1 650 MW of solar capacity as part of its independent power producer tender for the procurement of 3 725 MW of renewable energy capacity between 2012 and 2016.

But Zungu stressed that the Integrated Resources Plan, which was guiding the development of conventional and renewable power generation capacity for the 20-year period from 2010 through to 2030, was a living document and the next version could well include a higher proportion of solar, including possible solar imports.

The cost of deploying solar capacity was still high, DoE chief director for clean energy Mokgadi Mathekgana acknowledged. But South Africa hoped to moderate these costs through the localisation of skills and components, as well as but pursuing some of the initiatives as regional projects.

Therefore, government was also keen for there to be an acceleration of the regional power pools in Southern and Eastern Africa, as well as for critical interconnection projects to be built, so as to facilitate the creation of regional electricity markets.

Such markets could substantially lower the capital investments required to develop the generation capacity required to improve access to electricity for individuals and for business in Africa.

Currently, only 42% of Africa’s citizens had access to electricity, while penetration in sub-Saharan Africa was even lower at 31%. Yearly electricity consumption per person was also the lowest in the world at 450 kW.

EAST AFRICA POWER TRADING

East African Power Pool (EAPP) energy systems specialist Joseph Magochi argued that regional power pools could substantially lower the cost of improving power access. But he also warned that the benefits could only flow if countries cooperated and supported regional projects, sometimes at the expense of national initiatives.

He said that the EAPP, which was established in 2005 and currently comprised nine countries and 11 utilities from Libya in the north, to Kenya in the east and Tanzania in the south, was pushing ahead with the creation of the institutional and physical infrastructure required to support crossborder electricity trade.

A regional master plan had been devised, which envisaged a fully fledged regional trading arrangement by 2021. But Magochi indicated that the systems, regulatory and standards infrastructure, as well as some of the initial physical interconnections were already being developed to cater for the first bilateral trade to take place by 2013. A spot market was expected to emerge by 2016 and evolve towards a full trading system by 2021.

The idea was to facilitate markets for what was anticipated to be the emergence of surplus capacity from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Ethiopia over the coming decade. This surplus could be deployed in countries that would remain power short.

The Norwegian government was providing the EAPP with funding to help with the establishment of a regional market operations centre, probably in Addis Ababa, as well as a regional regulatory commission.