Best plan to keep the lights on: Solar and wind power officially cheaper than coal

It would be BRILLIANT if DM or someone you could find could do an SA version of this. Not only does renewable make sense, but couple with the right systemic thinking it would bring PLENTY of jobs back home

"Solar and wind power officially cheaper than coal" Really? We need some more serious reporting. Cheaper maybe at the point of generation. But costs for the grid connections, maintaining grid reliability, providing large-scale storage and backup capacity for long periods of low generation (or cost of massive over-development to have greater ability to ensure that power is always on') , are not factored in. The happy developers with guaranteed revenue expect the public to pick up those costs.... all that's being presented is a process of privatising the profits and socialising the losses. Already, organisations that have installed solar to reduce their costs are complaining about proposals for them to pay availability charges when they connect to the (public) grid because the sun is not shining or the wind doesn't blow hard enough. There is no cheap magic bullet for low carbon electricity and articles like this are simply misleading.

> But costs for the grid connections, maintaining grid reliability, providing large-scale storage and backup capacity for long periods of low generation (or cost of massive over-development to have greater ability to ensure that power is always on’) , are not factored in They might not be, but neither are the huge upfront capital costs of getting a coal power station up and running (let alone operations and maintenance cost as mentioned). You also can't forget the inevitable delays and complexities that come with mega-scale projects such as nuclear and coal builds. A quick calculation - Medupi was estimated at costing R234 billion, with a nameplate capacity of 4800MW, and in May 2021 it produced 2426MW from 5/6 completed units then. Call it ~3000MW if it were fully operational. If it were running at this capacity, assuming a 40 year design life, you'd have 1051200000 MWh at the end of it. Divide the cost by this figure (234000000000 / (3000*24*365*40)) and initial capital outlay alone adds R222/MWh to the figure!

I realise that the author is well intentioned - but the type of errors made in this article contribute to polarisation of the debate on electricity in South Africa. I have lived off-grid on solar for 20 years and I support the rapid rollout of wind and solar to decrease our carbon emissions. BUT, it is just conceptually wrong to compare a coal price of 421c/MWh with these latest prices for renewable energy of 473c/MWh. This quote is just absurd: "“Given that the average cost of renewable power procured in this round was R473/MWh, it means that it is effectively cheaper for Eskom to buy this renewable energy than run its more expensive coal plants." If you visit the relevant Eskom page it shows you the actual production of wind and solar energy in South Africa on a hourly basis. The huge fluctuations show the obvious flaw in the above quote. The sun does not shine at night and wind speeds vary hugely. Those prices only apply "when the sun is shining/wind is blowing". You cannot compare that with coal or gas or nuclear energy that if run correctly will give energy 24 hours per day. And there are no batteries in existence that can run a country or even a big city on the 4 windless nights SA experiences annually. Rolling out renewables requires dispatchable backup. Globally gas is the energy of choice to pair with renewables due to the speed with which it can be fired up.

Google this phrase "Eskom total hourly renewable generation" and then click on the first link to see what our current renewables generate on an hourly basis. The wild fluctuations point you to the problem of simply comparing renewable energy prices with alternatives that run 24 hours per day (coal, gas, nuclear, etc). To rollout huge renewable capacity you MUST install a giant backup energy generation system to cover the fluctuations in wind speeds and the fact that solar panels only produce energy for about 10 hours per day. And the cost of that backup system must be factored into the cost of the renewables. Typically these backup systems use gas as it can be quickly fired up and down to cover renewable fluctuations. There are no batteries on earth than can run a city or a country on the four windless nights we experience on average four times per year.

Dave Martin's comments are reasonable on the fact of it, but the fact is that in the Risk Mitigation IPP, there were bids to supply 428MW of renewable energy-PLUS-STORAGE at costs LOWER than LNG.

David le Page - please provide a reference for that claim. I only saw solar plus diesel generator at night. Not storage.

Why does thermal energy not feature at all? We have hugely deep mines in Gauteng. Perhaps someone without vested interests can put the unwanted heat and water to some purpose..... Reversible meters and solar panels incorporated into roofing with replenishment of water in the hydro electric storage systems when the sun is shining could be energy efficient as a partial solution. Too many wind farms are going to pollute scenery and decimate our bird life...

David le Page: I had a look at the Risk Mitigation IPP and in the first round the renewables were all paired with gas or diesel. There was a 2nd round of winners announced in September which comprised three Solar PV + Battery Storage bids: Kenhardt 1, Kenhardt 2 and Kenhardt 3 (all by the company Scatec). These were bid at R1884/MWh which is about 30% more expensive than gas alone. These bids only provide about 2 hours of battery storage. If we were to use batteries for a whole night, these bids would require much bigger batteries which would be MUCH more expensive. But these three bids do prove my point: you can't compare the cost of renewables alone, you have to add in the cost of storage and/or gas as a backup. When you do this, then the numbers quoted in the above article (R473/MWh) are shown to be totally misleading. You can increase that number by at least 500% to get an accurate idea of what it would cost to run the country on renewables+batteries.

Reference for the above (can't post link): Google "South Africa adds $1bn solar-battery project portfolio to RMIPPPP preferred bidder list" and click on the Engineering News article at the top.