It was crucial for renewable-energy projects to be fast-tracked nationally to counter electricity shortages in the short-term, photovoltaic (PV) solutions provider Talesun Energy VP Arthur Chien said.

State-owned Eskom has been struggling to keep the lights on in the country and has, on occasion, had to implement load shedding.

Chien noted that South Africa’s plans to invest in further nuclear energy generation capacity would not be a suitable short-term solution, as the construction of a nuclear power station could take between five to seven years.

He argued that renewable-energy projects would take less time to build, saying it would take about six months to build a wind farm and 16 weeks to establish a solar energy project, depending on its size.

Chien further argued that the costs of building and maintaining a nuclear plant was far higher than establishing renewable-energy projects.

Citing Greenpeace research, he stated that investment in nuclear plants also channeled investment away from renewable energy and the fight against climate change. “Renewables can replace several times more of the carbon that is leading to climate change for the same cost as nuclear and at a far faster pace,” he said.

DIFFERING VIEWS
However, not everyone is convinced that renewable energy is the answer to the country’s power supply problems.

Econometrix MD and senior economist Rob Jeffrey in November said the “fundamental weaknesses” of renewable-energy sources currently precluded these projects from being able to provide affordable, reliable power to the national grid.

He told delegates at the Southern African Energy Efficiency Convention, in Johannesburg, that significant growth in the renewables sector would drive up energy prices and that wind and solar power generation projects also tended to depend largely on subsidies.

“The only [viable] sources of baseload power for this country in the next 150 years are coal, nuclear and shale gas…renewable energy is just too expensive and too unreliable,” he said at the time.