The end for SA ‘baseloadism’
PATH AHEAD: RENEWABLE ENERGY CHEAPEST
Need flexible power generation: renewable costs lower vs new coal, nuclear.
With the massive reduction in prices of renewable energy from wind and solar photo-voltaic (PV) plants over the past five years, to levels now less than half that of energy from new coal and nuclear baseload plant, a new approach to power generation beyond “baseloadism” is emerging.
In fact, the cost of energy in SA from new wind and solar PV plant is now even lower than Eskom’s average cost of electricity from its entire, aging power generation fleet – a mix of coal, nuclear, hydro, pumped water storage and diesel-driven open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs).
It now makes economic and technical sense for electricity utilities such as Eskom to source as much energy from wind and solar PV as possible – limited only by the ability of the renewable energy sector to deliver the planned new capacity requirements and the ability of the grid to handle this new variable capacity.
International experience and scientific and technical research now shows that to 2050 and beyond, there’s no economic, technical or other reason why the significant majority of SA’s new generation capacity requirements shouldn’t be wind and solar PV, backed up by flexible generation capacity in the form of gas-to-power, hydro, pumped water storage and other emerging energy storage technologies.
Baseload generation capacity generally came from large coal-fired and nuclear power plants, and hydro-power plants. Then, baseload power plants produced the cheapest electricity; their generation units were therefore given preferential access to the grid, despatched first to meet demand, and expected to run continuously for as long as possible.
Flexible power
With the cost of energy from new wind and solar PV now dramatically lower than that of new coal or nuclear power, the new approach to meet growth in electricity demand in the years ahead entails sourcing and giving preferential first grid access to as much energy from wind and solar PV generation plant as possible.
SA’s wind and solar resources are significantly better than those of most other countries.
The variable output of wind and solar PV plant – affected by wind patterns, length of daylight hours and weather – is dealt with to a significant degree by siting wind and solar PV plants widely across SA at a number of identified renewable energy development zones (REDZ), as close as possible to major electricity consumption areas.
Widely distributed variable wind and solar PV generation, backed up with flexible power generation, provides reliable, flexible, dispatchable, quasi-baseload power at least cost (10%-20% cheaper) versus coal and nuclear power.
It also delivers much lower CO2 emissions, water usage and the most jobs (10%– 20% more).
Short, reliable and proven construction times eliminate the risk of cost and time overruns associated with complex coal and nuclear mega-projects, reduce the risk of future demand uncertainty, and avoid the need for long-term contractual commitments with foreign countries and governments.
Chris Yelland is investigative editor at EE Publishers.
The cost of energy in SA from new wind and solar PV plant is now even lower than Eskom’s average cost of electricity.