News24.com | Ramaphosa's climate advisors to push for massive rollout of renewables in energy plan

• The Presidential Climate Commission plans to recommend that 50GW to 60GW of renewable energy capacity be added by 2030.
• The commission will publish its full set of recommendations for the Integrated Resources Plan soon, says executive director Crispian Olver.
• Olver also said that there is an economic case for coal-fired power stations must be decommissioned at the end of their life cycles.
• For climate change news and analysis, go to News24 Climate Future.

The Presidential Climate Commission plans to recommend that 50 to 60 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity be included in the country's energy mix by 2030, according to executive director Crispian Olver.

The commission is currently working on recommendations for the Integrated Resources Plan - which outlines how the country's energy demand - will be met by 2030. Olver said the full set of recommendations would be launched soon.

"… In those recommendations, we are going to argue that we need to get 50GW to 60GW of renewables onto the grid by 2030," he said. The scale of peaking capacity recommended from gas plants, for example, is significantly lower at 3GW to 5GW.

Olver made these remarks during a briefing on Monday about another set of recommendations the commission made to President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding the Just Energy Transition – Investment Plan (JET-IP).

The R1.5-trillion plan was unveiled late last year, ahead of the UN Climate Summit COP27. It builds on an initial $8.5-billion pledge from rich nations – the UK, US, Germany, France and the EU - to aid South Africa's transition to a low-carbon economy.

Interventions are targeted at decommissioning coal-fired power stations in the energy sector and developing the green hydrogen and electric vehicle sectors so South Africa can remain a competitive trading partner amid mounting global pressures to meet climate commitments.

Rudi Dicks, head of the Presidency's project management office, who was also at the briefing, noted that so far, $300 million in concessional loans, each from Germany and France, has already flowed to the country, along with grant funding. But these have not yet been allocated to specific projects – pending the finalisation of an implementation plan for the JET-IP.

The commission, through extensive consultation, will also be making recommendations for this implementation plan.

The JET-IP supports the need to roll out more renewables. Specifically, the country needs to add 6GW to 8GW of renewables per year – a significant increase from the current situation. Olver noted, however, that this is currently being addressed. Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said last week that government would be launching a 5GW bid window soon, along with requests for proposals for 1.2GW of battery storage and 3GW of gas.

Speaking to the energy crisis, Olver noted that the "least cost and fastest" set of solutions is to add more renewables, co-locating them with battery storage and having peaking power support – for example, from gas-fired power plants.

As for meeting these requirements, Olver said there is a mix of players – the private sector and even municipalities and metros who would provide generation. At some point, Eskom should be able to invest in new generation projects, but its current budget restricts it given its debt levels. For now, Eskom's investments are to be directed to expanding the grid, noted Olver.

There is also scope for community or social ownership of renewables. "The private sector will take care of itself, and we have proven these are well-bankable [projects]," said Olver. The commission wants to help "nurse" alternative ownership models over the next five years.

Olver said that a lack of grid capacity would constrain the scaling up of this transition to clean energy and it is accepted by the government, business, labour and civil society that the grid must be upgraded and expanded.

"We note the Eskom Transmission Development Plan, which talks about 8 500km of transmission lines needed by 2031. We fully support that," said Olver. The commission wants the JET-IP to be more clear on how the grid expansion will be financed.

READ | Ramokgopa: We can't transition in the dark

Olver also noted the recent public debate on the delayed decommissioning of coal-fired power stations, as proposed by Ramokgopa to address the energy crisis in the short term.

"The least-cost approach is to pull coal plants off when they reach the end of their economic life. There are sound economic reasons for that because, at that point - it costs more to maintain plants than to get returns on them," said Olver.

"There is a strong logic to decommissioning at the end of economic life," he added.

However, Olver said that delaying the decommissioning by a year or two is "neither here nor there" as it would not fundamentally affect the country's ability to meet its Nationally Determined Contributions – this is the country's commitment to keeping carbon emissions within a certain range.

"We are making good progress in terms of our emissions reductions, partly because of load shedding and the anaemic economic growth we have as a country," he said.

But Olver emphasised when we have "stabilised" the power crisis, the decommissioning programme should be relooked at.

We would be able to pull coal plants off at a faster pace than at the end of their economic life - once renewables are ramped up to a "significant degree", and once we have grid stability with peaking power plants and put in place battery storage, he said.