South Africa: 5GW solar park to kick off Concentrating Solar Power deployment

[jpak]

http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=7881

A conference later this month will decide the fate of an ambitious undertaking in South Africa for the creation of 5GW solar park.

A positive outcome could trigger the development of South Africa’s Concentrating Solar Power market. An ambitious undertaking in South Africa, industrial gateway to the African continent, is the proposed creation of a R150 billion solar park, which on completion, would have the capacity to produce approximately 5 000 MW of renewable energy.

The project, if implemented, will be carried out in phases, with the initial phase having a capacity of 1 000 MW. The solar park would incorporate Eskom’s 100 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant, which has received part funding from the World Bank.

This proposed initiative does not come a moment too soon, as South Africa, a country fraught by rolling blackouts, has to increasingly turn towards alternative energy sources to help counteract its dire energy shortage and decrease its dependence on coal-fired power stations. The latter cannot be relied upon given the unreliability of South Africa’s future coal reserves for use in energy projects. Furthermore carbon emissions need to be reduced in order to adhere to international green principles and combat global warming.

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[tabatha]

1. Do this as well as the World Cup

and they have a winner.

[txlibdem]

2. Lather, rinse, repeat

They should keep this project going until they get rid of 100% of their coal power plants. Their plan calls to go from 96% coal generation to 48% by 2030 and that's great. But why stop there! Keep it going.

[kristopher]

3. Sometime planning horizons are there for a purpose.

It is expected that there will be a much larger selection of cost effective technologies available by 2030.

20 years seems like it's probably related to project financing considerations.

[txlibdem]

4. It's not going to take them 20 years to install 5 GW solar plant

Or more accurately 5 1GW solar plants because they seem to be building up to 5 GW in stages.

It didn't seem likely that it should take 4 years per GW. I just assumed they could finish it in 8 to 10 years and then move on to the next viable location for another 5 GW solar plant.

[NNadir]

5. This trivial amount of energy will do nothing to help them dig coal for Germany.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6812GQ20100902

It's really a disgrace in such a poor country to waste so much money for so little.

The number of scientifically illiterate anti-nukes who can tell the difference between energy and power here remains what it has been for more than 8 years of delusional wishful thinking talk in this space: Zero.

After 8 years of "world's largest" solar hype here, the numbers tell the whole story:

http://tonto.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=2&pid=36&aid=12&cid=&syid=2004&eyid=2008&unit=QBTU">Remarkably close to zero, but who's counting.