Thursday, March 17, 2011

South Africa plans large expansion of renewable energy

South Africa's government has approved a sweeping plan to increase renewable energy generation. The plan lowers South Africa's overwhelming reliance on coal, calling for renewable energy for an astounding 42 percent of new power projects. The government also approved draft legislation to buy energy from private power producers, which the state wants to supply nearly a third of new electricity generation.

"It is intended to make sure that we allow for participation by the independent power producers," said Energy Minister Dipuo Peters.

"We have a policy that says 30 percent of new power generation in the country must be generated by independent power producers. We need a structure or an institution that can facilitate that."

Having worked on development of wind sites in Namibia, I expect that NamPower (the state utility in Namibia) will follow suit with a similar plan. Eskom (the state utility in South Africa) has said in the past that they would purchase energy, if available, from bordering Namibia so I expect that there will be worldwide interest from renewable energy developers in both South Africa and Namibia.

No comments:

Post a Comment