Page 11 - AfrElec Week 40 2022

AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec

Private investors stampede for

land to build green projects in SA

SOUTH AFRICA A South African government call for private facilities on its land that is close to the grid. It has
investors to lease land from it to build renewable availed 4,000 acres as the first trance but, 61,000
energy projects was three times oversubscribed, acres will be added, Ruyter said.
a top official has said. “Why do we lease the land? Why don’t we sell
ndre de Ruyter, chief executive of power the land? Because we want to retain control. If
utility Eskom, told a discussion forum in the you don’t use the land to erect renewable gener-
commercial capital Johannesburg on Thursday ation capacity. We want to kick you off, if you let
(October 6) that following the overwhelming cattle graze in the land, that does not achieve the
response, they will sign agreements with inves- objective that we have in mind,” Business Report
tors on October 14, according to local daily Busi- quoted him as saying.
ness Report. Due to the inefficiency of the coal-fired sta-
“We are leasing land, close to our power sta- tions, vandalism of infrastructure and routine
tions with grid access. We were delighted by the maintenance, Eskom is generally producing
first responders, and we will be signing those slightly more than half of its capacity. As a result,
agreements on the 14th of October, that’s about the country has been short of electricity since
2,000 megawatts (MW). It was three times over- 1998.
subscribed, by highly capable investors.” The utility is negotiating with the World Bank
Africa’s most-developed economy has the for support to repurpose and repair 1,000MW
capacity to generate some 40,000MW of elec- Komati coal-based power station, he said. It has
tricity, 80% of it from ageing coal-burning facil- secured a grant from the Global Energy Alliance
ities. However, the continent’s biggest polluter Partners to start a training centre at Komati
(and 12th globally) has unveiled a plan to stim- to train solar photovoltaic and wind energy
ulate greater investment in renewable capacity, technicians.™
including the call for private investors to build

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