An integrated approach to renewable energy is needed to address the continent’s electricity challenges.
Take some sunshine, add some gusts of wind, and you have the basic ingredients for one of Africa’s toughest procurement auctions. It’s a competition in which the bidders cut their margins to the bone to win 20-year government contracts to generate renewable energy and feed it into the national electricity grid. Unlike fossil fuels, these energy resources are free, environmentally friendly, and will not run out.
The continent’s abundant solar radiation is attracting interest, domestically, and most recently also from European countries seeking to replace their dependency on Russian gas with renewables. ‘South Africa’s higher-than-average solar radiation levels range between 4.5 kWh/m2 and 6.5 kWh m2 in a day, giving us a clear competitive advantage in pursuing solar PV options,’ says Nicola Rump, a principal environmental scientist at SRK Consulting, an engineering and scientific consulting firm for the resource industry. ‘Our annual 24-hour global solar radiation average of about 220 W/m2 puts us well ahead of the United States with their 150 W/m2, and the level of about 100 W/m2 for Europe and the United Kingdom.’
