The Jasper solar farm, located near Kimberley in South Africa, is now the continent’s largest solar power project. Construction was completed in October, and it is now fully operational (you can read that in the Star Wars emperor’s voice). With a rated capacity of 96 megawatts, Jasper will produce about 180,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy annually for South African residents, enough to power up to 80,000 homes.
What makes this even better is that Japser won’t stay the biggest solar project for long. In the same area, in South-Africa, near the 75-megawatt Lesedi project that came online last May, a 100-megawatt concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) project called Redstone is also under construction.
The Jasper Project generated about 1 million man-hours of paid work during construction, peaking at over 800 on-site construction jobs.
South Africa has a goal of having 18 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, so projects like this are definitely steps in the right direction. If there’s one thing that South Africa has lots of, it’s sunlight!
45% of the total project value was spent on “local content” to help increase the positive economic impact on the area.
The project was developed by a consortium consisting of SolarReserve, the Kensani Group (an experienced empowerment investment player in South Africa), and Intikon Energy (a South African developer of renewable energy projects).
Financing came from local and international sources, including Google and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), Intikon Energy, Kensani Capital Investments,, the PEACE Humansrus Community Trust, and SolarReserve with Rand Merchant Bank.
By Michael Graham Richard. Source: TreeHugger
Read the article and what I find frustrating is the use of MWh (Megawatt-hours), not an average MW rating. So for the average person, 180,000 MWh annually sounds like a lot. But really, that equates to 20.5 MW. Although, to get technical, if we assume that the panels only see light for 8 hours a day, that’s an average of 61.5 MW, much less than the rated 96 MW as expected. The rated value of a solar or wind farm is always a peak and rarely seen. Bottom line, you will need to build 100 of these (largest solar farms in Africa) to replace just the Koeberg station in Cape Town alone. Even then, what do you propose Eskom uses during the night to power the country?
Wind, hydro? wave power pumped storage if possible, wave power & other if suitable.
South Africa does not have the geography or water for large scale hydroelectric power storage.
Wind is intermittent, even in the Cape. Unless and until there is a way to store gigawatt hours of power projects like this are merely toys.
Steve Bush says
Is most certainly does have the geography - the water is another issue. But is has plenty of options for wind and tidal power. Besides which doing it on this scale isn’t really the answer in South Africa, it would be better to go down the household route with solar PV on each building and a Tesla type battery back and inverter to give power overnight. Also Solar Thermal plants are being developed with molten salt which will continue to generate power after the sun goes down. Nuclear should never be an option, it’s insane.
The best answer is most certainly not a PV system on every roof and a Tesla battery in every house. If you want to reduce the most amount of carbon at the cheapest price you don’t go with the most expensive route, that ensure on more houses than less the system efficiency is below optimal and then add a battery that doesn’t produce a single watt and can have it’s objective met through the existing grid connection and its virtual storage. This PV system and others like it are not being built to meet the needs of those living in the bush, it is being built to meet the needs on an extensive grid system in South Africa that is losing economic productivity with below need generation and resulting load shedding that impacts every level of the economy. Much/many of the destitute poor in the “townships” were given cheap Chinese solar thermal water heaters some years back that already cover the roofs leaving no space for PV as is.
The Tesla battery was developed for electric cars. It stores a high ( for a battery) amount of power per Kg. It is also very expensive. In a stationary application, this is not an issue. What is needed is a cheap, large capacity device, even if it weighs a ton.
The Tesla Powerwall is $3500. Fancy toy to hang on your wall and show your friends how ‘green’ you are. How many people are actually off grid and that can afford this luxury device so they aren’t inconvenienced by a temporary power outage? In the U.S. where electricity is cheap, how many cheaper off peak night time kwhr does it take to pay it off? How many kW of PV capacity could be purchased now for $3500 (not installed)? The U.S. that can afford batteries is nowhere near the PV capacity needed to be bothering with batteries & storage for individual houses right now.
I am happy for the South Africans, Congratulations, Now you can join the rest of the rest of the developed world in accelerating Global Warming & Leave your legacy on for your Grand Children to Clean Up. It can’t even imagine How much Heat these Panels will put off, probably a Staggering amount . Then, The beneficiaries of this new Electricity will be able to stay cool will air conditioners, Yes, More Jobs & Money. So, What is the life expectancy off these Panels? And How Much energy will be used to ship them to a safe recycling facility and Process then so they can make new replacements ? We are talking Toxic Waist ! Yes, More Jobs & More Money ! Who Cares, Most of us will die of old age, Right, It will be some one else’s Problem, Right, Well, Just keep building them, it’s okay by me, But , Don’t miss represent the true cost
What abour lunar panels? We have solar panels, I have heard the moon’s surface is 400Celsius. So if we build lunar panels we can power the earth at night.
At night we should sleep - our brains need it that way round. But yes, you might have a point, though there is plenty of solar during the day.
Medical services, security services, fire fighting - should they all sleep at night? Restaurants, fuel stations, concert venues… Not to mention certain vital industries having to keep their machineries running. The list is long.
Alex Nuta says
The answer is batteries, capacitors, kinetic storage, electrochemical batteries and many others. Energy storage is an issue with every energy form. “However will we store the oil when we don’t have it flowing through a pipe from the well? Tanks. Duh.”
Willem, a temperature increase actually decreases pv efficiency. They make use of light, not thermal energy
Steve Bush says
Depends on the type of plant, solar thermal plants use the thermal energy as well.
YES! and email the power back to earth
What’s your solution Glen? Seeing as you’ve outlined all the reasons why renewable energy is useless to you will you tell us what your sustainable solution is?
It is a great start. As we know, Solar Photovoltaic’s is an intermittent energy source unless a storage element is included. Until economics of scale drive the cost of a storage sources like batteries to a reasonable price for utility scale storage of this magnitude to make economic sense for most nations, having a hybrid power generation solution typically works well for now. Loosing that amount of Solar off a grid can create instability issues that have to be addressed somehow through spinning reserve systems or other means. Perhaps decentralized storage at the point of use (at the hospitals, police etc) could also potentially work. This is a small incremental step towards a larger transition process all nations need to take for total global carbon emission reduction.
The annual electricity production in MW-hours is an important performance measure, as is the rated power generation capacity under bright sunlight conditions (1 kw per square meter of solar irradiance with a clear sky spectrum (Air Mass 1 for you techies). PV plants produce electricity during peak electricity demand periods and can save ESKOM increasingly on expensive peaking plant capacity. The details are widely available at the touch of a Google search. We are still in the early stages of a transition to a world in which renewable energy flows provide the bulk of electricity and synthetic fuels. Look for my paper “The Helios Strategy” on line or write to me for a free PDF. The South African solar power projects are to be celebrated and the decline and phaseout of coal also.
Yes, I agree MWh is an important metric to use, but it should be used within the industry and not to be used in mainstream media. There’s only one reason to quote MWh per year over the running average MW and that is because the former number is much larger. If the author were to then say that Koeberg produced 16,000,000 MWh last year (day and night) or that Eskom produced somewhere around 219,000,000 MWh last year for the country, compared to the solar plant’s 180,000 MWh, then readers would be able to fully understand the solar plant’s potential (note, I use commas as a thousandth separator). Therefore, my point as an expert in this field is to stick to just MW’s when educating the public so that we can compare apples to apples and not complicate an already sophisticated concept as the electrical grid of a country.
So I constantly ask journalists to just quote the rated output of the solar farm (96 MW in this case) and then the average operating output for the previous year (61.5 MW) and state the obvious (to us experts, but probably not the public) that this is only produced during the 8 - 12 hours of day time. But instead we see this sneaky over-promotion by journalists where they quote the rated output (which is rarely achieved) and then an even bigger impressive number (which in fact is actually disguised from showing underperformance and full of limitations) - MWh for the year.
Next you mention peak demand and you are somewhat correct. Peak demand does happen during the day, but that can actually depend on the country you are referring to. As for America, that peak does happen in the middle of the day. But for South Africa, that peak is shared between the middle of the day and 5 - 6pm when everyone comes home or stops by a restaurant or event. America has that same sub-peak, but South Africa is more pronounced. So you are correct in saying that solar panels can (not “will”) help during peak loads. But what happens when it’s raining (an African blessing, right?) or if it’s cloudy on a given day? Yes, that peak demand now needs to be supplied by a coal plant. Eskom has to burn more coal on such a day to make up for the underperformance of that solar farm. But let me explain to you further what that really means. Engineers and scientist cannot give you a coal plant that can ramp up from dormant state to an power output state in minutes, not possible with current human technology. It takes weeks of course work to explain what is involved with turning on any type of power plant and syncing the turbine generator to the electrical grid. But when clouds pass over a solar farm, the distribution center has minutes to react to the sudden loss in power output before voltage and frequency drops below breaker trip set points. Therefore, utilities have to keep coal plants running fully staffed and at some low power (if you have margin, unlike Eskom) and when solar or wind farms suddenly lose power output due to clouds or still air, the distribution center can request coal plants to quickly increase steam demand to their turbines and prevent grid voltage and frequency from dropping.
This is a long story and I hope what I am saying is understandable. So to summarize that part, what I’m trying to explain is that 62 MW being produced during the day by the biggest solar farm in Africa actually is not able to replace a coal plant. Not even if you build a hundred of them. Don’t you see? Solar and wind farms still need coal plants fully staffed and burning coal in standby, so that every time a cloud passes over your head or when the wind stops blowing, your grid’s voltage and frequency doesn’t drop too low. Now let’s say Eskom was stupid enough to build 6,200 MW (average day time rating) of solar farms. Just imagine the voltage and frequency swing the grid will experience when clouds pass over? The number of coal plants that will have to ramp up to 100% will be so high that the cost to keep such an infrastructure possible is preposterous! Just imagine! The cost to build and maintain these 100 solar farms, along with running 8 to 10 full-sized coal plants fully staffed and on low power. It’s crazy! Plus, what happens when it rains for a few days? Well, you are back to running your coal plants at full power. Those 100 solar plants didn’t replace those coal boilers. They didn’t replace the coal mines. They didn’t replace the conveyer belts, coal trains, and coal trucks feeding the ever-burning coal boilers. They didn’t replace the never-ending maintenance of the steam turbines and smoke stack scrubbers. But yet the people demand that Eskom waste the country’s money building solar farms while keeping their coal units running and functional for when it rains or clouds pass overhead.
But wait, there’s more! Night time. That’s right, countries (South Africa included) needs their hospitals, communications network, heat and cooling, police and fire departments, water utilities, commercial and industrial sectors, finance, and the list doesn’t truly end, to be operational during the night. So let’s say it never rains, nor is cloudy. You still need Eskom to keep your milk cold and water hot during the night. Coal continues to be burned while your several thousand acres of solar panels sit in the dark.
But maybe you don’t support a large solar and wind power portfolio. Okay. Maybe you just want them to support peaking? Well, how much peaking is actually cost effective for the citizen? That’s a very complicated question, but utilities know the answer. I will give a simply overview to save time. Let me paint a somewhat unrealistic picture to try explain the reality. Let’s say from 12pm to 2pm, the South African grid feels the added peak demand of 100 MW. Now I hope that last sentence makes sense, because the rest builds on it. So what the average person might think is a good solution is to build a 100 MW solar farm and that farm will be able to supply that peak and help the utility, win-win solution right? No, far from it. First, lets get the whole rated vs actual output out the way. From this article, the largest solar farm was underperforming at 67% of the rated value. That’s a whole third loss. Just to give you perspective. If any coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plant performed at 67% of its rated output, it would be decommissioned without hesitation. They consistently operate at 90% or greater of their rated output (this applies to designated base-load plants, which is every nuclear plant, France is an exception).
So with that said, to take account for the gross underperformance of solar farms, you would think then you need 1.55 solar farms (largest in Africa) to support the 100 MW peak that occurs every day for 2 hours. No, not quite yet. Now I will explain in a basic way how electrical grids work (which is just an amazing man-made wonder). If the grid needs 25,000 MW at any given time (which is the demand in South Africa), the utility doesn’t just turn on 25,000 MW worth of output supply. It produces a little more, produces a margin, maybe 26,000 MW. That way, when a smelting plant or 5,000 water heaters all switch on at the same time, the grid won’t collapse. Utilities supply a margin to buy time to adjust plant output before grid voltage and frequency drop below breaker trip set points. It’s even more interesting to explain where that extra 1,000 MW goes when it’s not used for any given second. But I will simplify it to saying that it just increases grid voltage. That’s right, you actually don’t always see 220 VAC (South African consumer voltage) coming from your outlets, it could be 223 VAC because of this process.
Ok, so with all that said. You can’t just use an averaged rated solar plant of 100 MW to support a 100 MW peak demand. The utility has to build in a margin. Now even though I have worked at several electrical utilities around the world and spent years earning two degrees, I don’t have much experience with distribution departments. So I can’t even give an educated guess to the margin percentage. But if you let me pull this out of thin air, I will appreciate it. Let’s say we need 5% margin. But this is solar and fluctuations are infinitely larger than a base-load plant (fossil or nuclear). So to account for both the fluctuations of the solar supply and the fluctuations in the electrical load on the grid, the solar margin could be 20% or higher. So final estimate. We need 180 MW rated solar power to supply a 100 MW peak demand during those two hours in the afternoon. In other words, Eskom will have to build almost two of the largest solar farms in Africa to power a 100 MW peak for a few hours. PLUS! Eskom will need to keep a coal plant fully staffed and running at low power in the background.
Now you should be able to see why utilities just hate it when they hear this green-happy-clean-fresh-endless power proposal forced upon them.
P.S. If you start trying to tell me about grid battery banks to smooth out solar and wind farm outputs, you better quote me the utility that is currently using them. I want their capacity in MWh, the cost per MWh without government subsidies, their actual (not rated) charge cycles before their useful life expires (around 60% of their rated charge capacity), and the number of tons of toxic chemicals (mostly an acid) and toxic metals (mostly lead, but the newer concepts use other heavy metals) used to manufacture such a battery bank.
P.S.S. If you instead tell me about pumped water storage reservoirs, you should know better. The loss in efficiency is scary, but if interested, I can explain the loss in total power output, from the collection of power from the sun or burning coal, to the power that reaches the customer if going through a pump water reservoir station. If that’s not enough, then just know most countries can’t build any more hydro plants. This reality applies to both America and South Africa. So what capacity you have now is it, no more.
Very well said.. I am no expert but I fully understood what you said and completely agree with you.
Phillip Newmarch says
I am not going to argue with your arithmetic, and I concede your point about pump-storage as far as it relates to ‘conventional’ hydro-power schemes built as dams on rivers. These are indeed subject to limitations, both available sites, and the various problems resulting from interrupting flow of the rivers.
But I suggest that this would not apply to ‘artificial’ closed-circuit hydro schemes, which could be independent of rivers, requiring only enough water to fill them in the first place, and then to top them up as regards evaporation losses. Clearly a site with a suitable slope would also be desirable.
I don’t see a reason why such an arrangement could not be designed to a provide continuous, 24-hour supply, varied as per demand. Also, it wouldn’t necessarily need more space, because the solar panels could be placed over the reservoirs to assist with evaporation control.
CSP systems are also capable of storing power for night time use.
I sonlt read anythign any more, but I read that all and understood. Thanks for the education. What about this power storage method? http://www.ilventure.co/h2-energy-now
Commercially available electrolysis units have an efficiency of about 70%
http://www.electrochemsci.org/papers/vol7/7043314.pdf. There is no room for vast improvements in hydrogen production per KwHr. It is difficult and expensive to store hydrogen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage.
Unless and until a cheap process for storing electrical energy is found, wind and solar will remain a rich person’s toy.
Thanks Glen, well explained. From the article I initially thought the solar panel would be a great idea, but now I realise that it won’t work so well in practice.
With our fast sea currents that seem fairly constant on both east and west coasts would it be possible and worthwhile to build plants to capture that energy?
Glen, thank you for the engineering honesty. If you receive this, can you reply? I would like to understand the real truth about SA’s solar and wind ‘farms’ - is Eskom really able to use and manage their power, or is it just another fronting scam where billions are paid for pretty white elephants that do nothing to change the energy supply and distribution problem in South Africa? In simple terms - where does the bull shit stop, and the truth start?
Thank you for such a well thought out response.
I am sure that you will agree though that we have to start somewhere - by definition once a KW of any fossil fuel is used, it is gone forever!
Better to have the beginnings of replacement fuel sources, however inefficient, as is gives us a base to work from in developing renewable energy sources, and as I stated earlier, we have to start somewhere.
Once public opinion and governments get behind the process (I mean REALLY behind, not just fine words), then the renewable energy will grow far more positively than it is now.
Great explanation. Nobody understands you still need a huge base load, which is not viable from current erratic “green” sources. And you are looking at a peak load increase of at least 2000MW during the evening, so you would need over 20 of these farms operating at their full capability to even think about just replacing the current gas turbine engines that are being used for peak load assistance.
Very strong and clear argument Glen.
The “utilities” of the world will need to get used to it. Whether they like it or not, it is coming.
Though this is clean energy, there is a negative side when it comes to deploying massive solar panels over large areas. The intense heat reflected by these panels directly affects the overflying birds. It will be good if these panels are deployed in such a way its impact on overflying birds are at not life threatening. The below article shed light on this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/solar-panel-bird-deaths-ivanpah-brightsource-mojave_n_4809808.html
Hello Godwin, Although I agree with the potential “bird problem” you mentioned, It is important to clarify the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is NOT a conventional crystalline solar panel system (mono, poly, thin film). It is a Concentrated Solar Power System which focuses and reflects direct sunlight to a central point with the use of Mirrors (mirrored heliostats). Different technology. convential flat panels are still safe when deployed in large numbers. And the number of birds mentioned in the article being killed are exaggerated in orders of magnitude. Thanks for reading.
It’s not about like it or not, it’s about effectiveness, and the need to keep the lights on. We need this first. Fat lot of good the renewables will be if the whole country trips out. How abou three weeks (or three months?) with no power, no water, no petrol or diesel and no food coming in trucks to the shops?
Wow. Glen thanks for a very well written explanation (for Joe Public to understand). That’s a pretty depressing reality check for those of us who thought Solar simply needs to be deployed rapidly and extensively to solve the problem.
Brian Ellse says
How many panels on the farm, what weight glass and steel per panel? Copper weight in the cables? PVC mass used? Just curious as to the raw material volumes used in constructing this farm.
With respect to the commentators superior knowledge I think that we are all missing the plot.
I have been off the grid for 12 months now and can tell you that it is not an inexpensive option.
However every roof in South Africa Africa is a potential solar power collector. The problem is storage. Deep Cycle batteries are expensive and add considerably to the time taken to achieve return of investment (ROI) so a solution would be to invert the DC current collected on roofs to 220V AC and use this in the building (read house) during the day and feed any excess into the local grid during the day and receive a credit for this. At night households could buy electricity from the grid. This would make Solar Power more viable (by obviating the need for banks of deep cycle batteries), reduce the load on the grid, reduce overall electricity demand and reduce householder monthly bills.
To date ESKOM has been opposed to this as it is a threat to their monopoly
We would require skills that are superior than the current batch of “electricians” armed with SETA certificates.
Thanks for the detailed response Glen.. I have nowhere near the knowledge you have regarding this subject, but I too get frustrated when I see over-optimistic expectations from the smattering of wind and solar projects we have in SA. There is no sight more pathetic than the 4 little wind turbines sitting on the hill near Darling, either standing still or lazily turning from time to time
I think Glen is being pessimistic. Grids have back-up available over short, medium and long-term, sized to cope with large generators (power stations) falling off the grid. You don’t need separate back-up for each solar plant - that’s the point of the grid. He doesn’t understand the averaging effect of solar panels being spread over large areas. It is not possible for one very big cloud to pass over all the solar panels in South Africa at the same time, and therefore cause a huge fluctuation in the grid. Grids in the US and Europe and elsewhere cope fine with percentages of wind and sun in the generation mix, and Germany at weekends has over 50% of the country’s electricity supplied by wind and sun at times. The benefit is not so much in the ability to mothball other types of power plant, but the ability to save money on fuel, and also save lives by not burning extremely dirty fuels. All this stuff about keeping coal plants on slow burn with full staff ready to fire up at short notice - South Africa needs to modernise its power plants - the fossil ones as well as adding renewables. Gas power plants now common in US and Europe have more controllable output and can go from idle to high output very fast with good efficiency across the range. Wind power is available at night and during winter - if you look at the output in other countries, the amount of electricity produced from wind and sun combined is pretty consistent throughout the year. Also weather forecasting is pretty accurate four hours ahead - you can see the satellite images of weather systems moving across the country, therefore it is relatively easy to plan generation over that timescale.
Ed, several valid points in what you wrote… but the story will likely not be written that way in South Africa. Although the US is increasing NG generation (it actually exceeded that of coal in April, but only for that month), Europe (primarily Germany) is going away from NG electric generation. In that regard, it is a testament that not only can they reduce their dependence on baseload nuclear generation, but also variable firm capacity of NG by intelligently integrating variable wind and PV (no CSP in Germany… it’s just too expensive and there is no room for economy of scale efficiency increases unlike wind or PV) is a testament to exactly how PV & wind can do what fossils & nuclear say they can’t. To see where S. Africa is going, you can read my comments here… https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rosatom-says-russia-can-fund-safrica-100-billion-nuke-nicholas-newman (the article was actually edited to include the points I made)…. but jobs and protecting the coal industry is important in S. Africa, not saying wise, but important. Cheers
Brian Ellse, 96MW = 96,000kW. With 250W panels, there are four to a kW. So there will be 384,000 panels. They weigh c.19-20kg each including some mounting frame. I don’t have the breakdown of the components in percentages but you could search for it easily. The components are silicon wafers, an aluminium frame, a backplate, connecting wires between the silicon wafers and a junction box plus cables and connectors. Silicon is purified sand, The array would weigh 7680 tonnes in total.
South Africa has wide open spaces and is not densely populated. You would need to go to some large Indian or Chinese cities to realise the deadly consequences of trying to provide food, transport and electricity to billions of people around the world solely by burning dirty fossil fuels. By the way, China is an example of a country previously very reliant on coal which has invested hugely in renewables, and begun to stabilise its emissions into the atmosphere as a result. Any supertanker can change course eventually.
Thanks Glen. Very informative.
FlashPaperGrind (@FlashPaperGrind) says
Sure, it doesn’t power the country, but at least it does SOMETHING useful, however small.
Is it just me that gets excited to read about cool projects and then disheartened when the article is not proof-read?
“What makes this even better is that Japser won’t stay the biggest solar project for long.” JaSPer, not JaPSer….
Surely the advantage of solar technology is not in farms like this, but in household use. If every geyser in the country was solar powered, how many MW of demand that Eskom currently has to generate with coal would be freed up?
Why is everyone thanking Glenn? He’s a pessimist dressed in “reality”.
What we have here is a fantastic effort to solve the energy crisis we are experiencing. An overly winded response to justify why solar is not an option, when the photo itself says enough.
What he also neglects to point out, is the immeasurable amount of experience these developers and other stakeholders have after constructing this massive solar farm. How does one produce anything the first time and have it be perfect? No one. No space rocket, search engine etc. ever started off perfect.
If we only had Glenn’s in this world, we’d be stuck in the middle ages.
I say cudos to everyone who was involved in this project. It only gets better from here. Naysayers step aside and let the innovators and doers get on with improving our planet.
Glen. Very Well explained. Thank you. One later commenter touched on the subject of distributed grid or actually being off-grid. Part of Tesla’s battery-pack solution is to distribute the grid, with claim that this will be part of the reduction for requirements for large fossil fuel based plants. Is that true? Is it possible to control the fluctuations in a distributed grid or peer-to-peer network of solar-panels and battery packs?
Yes, Glen…. well written up. I agree MW capacity is better stated, not MWhr as all electrons are not the same and very time dependent. A price tag is the other important item missing from this article, especially as S. Africa is about to embark on a R1 Trillion boondoggle with ~10GW of Russian nuclear, that will not produce a single watt for at least 10 years.
But with all you are saying, and your numbers are off just a bit… South Africa is in the 45-50GW range, roughly double what you stated. Why that number is important… because it is in the same capacity range as both Germany & Texas (ERCOT), and both are showing how intelligent integration can reduce the severity of the grid reliability problems you state with PV [and/or wind]. The swings in PV output due to clouding are not nearly what they were just 5 years ago, as panels have micro-inverters. And given latitude in the Northern Cape, swings in production across the year will be nowhere near what happens in Germany… so day-ahead production will be much easier to predict and rely upon in SA than anywhere in Europe or North America.
Also, you are falling into the same trap as ESKOM and much of Africa is chasing with “base load” mentalities. The new energy paradigm, as being validated in Germany, Texas, & other “developed” countries is virtual baseload and matching with fluctuating demand loads. South Africa’s reliance on 85% or greater coal, and their new plants for streamlined, modular “small coal” generation in the wake of the ongoing Medupi & Kusile mega coal fiascoes, only compound this problem. Both nuclear and coal can not ramp up/down quickly as you rightly point out, but demand is not static either. Again, you are right to point out pumped storage is not an adequate solution either… it is a losing game for anything other than nuclear and coal that are expensive to take out of 100% on mode. Drakenburg & Ingula are being built to “subsidize” a coal & nuclear centric generation, as when the demand drops in the night time greater than any combination of multiple coal generators, the electrons will just be wasted.
It is very unfortunate, South Africa put an artificial cap on how much wind, solar PV or CSP (concentrated solar power - thermal) can be built, while locking themselves into dinosaur technologies of coal and nuclear. How much capital is being locked up to produce not a single watt for a minimum of 8-10 years, that could otherwise begin producing and paying itself off starting in max two years with wind, solar or CSP?
https://hansworldtravels.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/wisdom-of-african-mega-energy-development/
So if president Zuma pay back some money, maybe we can use that money to build another solar farm?
Wind power generates 140% of Denmark’s electricity demand
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demand
It was at night time in summer when consumption was at its lowest point
It is never as simple as press articles would like us to believe. I am sure that Eskom is not fully staffed with idiots, and that they do now a bit more than most of us. Is the answer not in using less power than trying to supply more? Increased cost would lead to a change in user behaviour and less wastage. Is our problme not wastefulness rather than the inability to generate more power? Easy to blame Eskom, more difficult to do a bit of introspection.
Solar power is one of the solutions, but how to get it is crucial to avoid another future disaster - solar farms requires clearing away the green coverage on the surface of the ground which is the direct cause for breaking the ecosystem, unsustainable development. Home power could be generated from directly attached to residential buildings, then the whole world could save more than half the land used for solar panels, which should be left for restoring the green - forest or vegetation.
John Kosowski says
The thing about this project is that it is going to prove how expensive and useless solar really is. The cool thing about freedom and the free market is that people are free to waste their money however they like.
Solar power can be really effective if used effectively in processes such as Hydrogen separation which can then be used when the sun isn`t shining. Hydrogen can be used to drive turbines or even as fuel for cars.
Hydrogen is expensive to store. It does not solve the problem of energy storage
Glen, this was a PhD in power generation for me. Thanks for the enrichment, people should take you as being against, but rather starting the debate. Let them also put their facts on the table.