Op-Ed: Coal or renewables? The answer is in the numbers

  • 📰 dailymaverick
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 60 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 27%
  • Publisher: 84%

South Africa Headlines News

South Africa Latest News,South Africa Headlines

Our current Integrated Resource Plan 2019 calls for significant (and yet wholly inadequate) new solar PV and wind build. By the time the solar and wind fleets have the same annual output as Medupi, the average cost per kWh for the renewables will be about 30% lower than that from Medupi.

Purely by chance, the first unit at the Medupi coal-fired power station came on line in 2015, the same year that wind and solar from the renewable energy independent producers procurement programme bid window 1 came on line. Since 2015, additional units from Medupi have come on line at an average of one per year. The sixth and last unit is due to come on line in February 2021, five and a half years after the first unit.

Table 1. Key operational and cost data for Medupi coal-fired power station. # Effective MW takes into account the month in which each new unit was commissioned in each particular year. Operational and cost data sourced from Eskom. Some data has been smoothed over the period. Cumulative capex spend is estimated, but locked in to 2020 cost data as supplied by Eskom. Final cost estimates are by the author, not from Eskom.

The result of this is that the electricity output from the first of the generating units is very expensive on a cost per kWh basis; it has to shoulder the full capital cost of the shared balance of plant infrastructure on its own.shows how the output from Medupi ramps up over time as each additional generating unit is added. Medupi should achieve full expected capacity of approximately 30TWh/year by 2022.also shows increased output from wind and solar PV additions over time.

Table 2. Comparative table for the six stages of Medupi to four actual and two hypothetical bid windows for wind and PV. Note that there were no bid windows for delivery of PV and wind in 2018 and 2019. By 2022, annual TWh is equal for Medupi, PV and wind at 30TWh/year.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 3. in ZA

South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Declassified UK Op-Ed: Britain’s creeping cronyismCoronavirus is diverting attention away from an unprecedented but under-reported threat. Official secrecy, incompetence and lack of accountability in Whitehall are combining with government cronyism to represent an assault on the rule of law and Britain’s parliamentary democracy.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

OP-ED: A global investment in public health is vital for the survival of future generationsEvery evening during the early days of the pandemic, people opened their windows at a set hour to applaud the heroic women and men who were putting their health on the line in the fight against Covid-19. In New York, London, Madrid and other cities, it became something of a ritual. For me, it was a daily reminder of those invisible workers, the public health professionals who battle the pandemic behind the scenes. It was also a reminder of how now, more than ever, we must invest in public health.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

MAVERICK LIFE OP-ED: In praise of a design ethos which flows from structure to streetsThe work-from-home reality highlights the importance of reactivating our streets, breathing new life into our underutilised high streets and working to make isolated shopping malls more interactive.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

OP-ED: South Africa: The upside-down world of Racial Capitalism and Black Lives Matter, Part 2The ANC’s Black Lives Matter is not a hypocrisy. It is much more than that. It is a defence. It is the second of the two ways in which the African rich seek to think well of themselves. It serves as a self-justification of otherwise intolerable actions and unthinkable greed.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Declassified UK Op-Ed: Britain’s creeping cronyismCoronavirus is diverting attention away from an unprecedented but under-reported threat. Official secrecy, incompetence and lack of accountability in Whitehall are combining with government cronyism to represent an assault on the rule of law and Britain’s parliamentary democracy.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

OP-ED: A global investment in public health is vital for the survival of future generationsEvery evening during the early days of the pandemic, people opened their windows at a set hour to applaud the heroic women and men who were putting their health on the line in the fight against Covid-19. In New York, London, Madrid and other cities, it became something of a ritual. For me, it was a daily reminder of those invisible workers, the public health professionals who battle the pandemic behind the scenes. It was also a reminder of how now, more than ever, we must invest in public health.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »