The World Wide Fund for Nature in South Africa (WWF-SA) identified the continued reliance on coal to generate more than two-thirds of the country’s electricity as a threat to natural resources such as land and water, which are critical to the agricultural sector and will consequently present increased challenges in terms of the food-energy-water nexus. As a result of this concern, WWF-SA proposes an increase in the percentage of RE generation capacity into the South African system to achieve between 11% and 19% of generation capacity from renewable sources as opposed to the 6-9% share proposed in the IRP 2010 Update from 2030.
The Centre of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies and STERG was contracted to do the spatial-temporal modelling and compilation of this report which tests the scenarios proposed in WWF-SA”s Renewable Energy Vision Report for 2030 (2014). The RE Vision Report was used as a starting point to test the technical and cost (techno-economic) feasibility and merits of the scenarios that the vision report proposes.
The full techno-feasibility report is now available from the Energy divison of WWF-SA’s website and from STERG’s Publications page.
WWF-SA’s Energy division has also published other reports on Renewable Energy in SA, and include the following:
- Concentrated solar power: A strategic industrial development opportunity for South Africa
- Enabling renewable energy in South Africa: Assessing the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme
- A review of the local community development requirements in South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programme