As businesses and consumers had to ensure several days of growth-denting load-shedding this week, the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has highlighted the importance of procuring new generation capacity.

The association believes that in choosing the new capacity needed to replace power utility Eskom’s ageing coal-generation fleet consideration has to be given to the need to decarbonise the energy system at least cost.

“Wind energy should be a big part of that mix as it is quick to build (commercial operation within 24 months), and will reduce the cost of energy in South Africa, improving our competitiveness, which should boost the economy, particularly through investments in the manufacturing sector."

Cabinet this week approved the long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which envisions that an additional 14 400 MW of electricity be produced from wind.

“. . . as soon as the IRP is gazetted we need to move swiftly into Ministerial determinations and then procurement,” said SAWEA CEO Ntombifuthi Ntuli.

Besides utility-scale generation, the wind industry is geared to supply electricity directly to energy intensive users through private power purchase agreements.

Ntuli said this would address a lot of capacity challenges and ultimately avoid load-shedding, which hindered economic stability and growth. However, to achieve the wind sector’s potential required policy support – generation licences and a wheeling policy framework.

Being at a key stage of the country’s energy transition, SAWEA hoped that the country’s plentiful wind resources would be harnessed to strengthen the power mix, considering the evidence that renewable power costs were competitive with that of new coal.

Ntuli quoted a study by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, which indicated that the wind resource potential in South Africa was “extremely good”, stating that wind turbines with extraordinarily high load factors could be operated on 80% of South Africa’s surface area, including along the coast and inland.

“The industry holds the potential to affect further broad-reaching needs for economic growth and societal upliftment, across South Africa, through clean power generation, rural social beneficiary programmes and stimulating investment. Adopting an approach that both smooths out annual wind energy procurement and raises annual procurement limits on renewables can create many more jobs in construction and manufacturing,” Ntuli said.