Renewable energy quickest way to solve power crisis, say experts
Experts believe renewable energy is the quickest way to resolve South Africa’s load shedding crisis.
On Thursday, South Africa's civil society held a press briefing during which they called for immediate action from Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe to allow all renewable energy and storage to be built and connected to the grid.
Director at Virtual Energy and Power Clyde Mallison says that renewable energy is one of the most predictable energy sources.
"We need to be building solar as fast as we can. Storage as fast as we can simply because we are behind on where we are meant to be.
"The beauty of having wind with all of this is that the wind flows over a 24 hour period and helps us fill in at the night time when the sun goes down. We are led to believe that the sun won't shine at night with 100% certainty. SO it's one of the most predictable energy resources that we have at our disposal. We should be doing it across all countries on all scales to get us out of this self imposed crisis that we are sitting in at the moment."
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Peter Becker from the Koeberg Alert Alliance called on Mantashe to issue a determination.
"We know we are in a crisis, we don't need to labour that point and we need new generating capacity now.
"So there's one thing that we agree on here and that is a section 34 determination immediately for all the renewable energy as listed in the IRP 2019."
South Africans have been battling with rolling blackouts for the past three weeks due to insufficient generation capacity by Eskom.
The power utility has blamed striking Eskom employees for the latest bout of load shedding.
