Dramatic reductions in the prices of alternatives means that various renewables
Nuclear and energy economics expert Dawid Serfontein, associate professor in nuclear engineering with the School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, North-West University, believes the value of nuclear must be understood relative to the value of forms of alternative energy.
“If we have excellent options in coal, wind, solar and gas, we don’t need nuclear,” he says. “However, coal is also very dirty. The way wind and solar-PV has been deployed in SA is expensive and wasteful and in reality does not work due to intermittency. The CSIR’s plan to back wind and solar PV [photovoltaic] up with imported gas power is better.
“However, the plan ignores the global warming caused by methane gas leakage, price volatility of gas and the strategic and economic risks of such large gas imports. It also ignores the need for stabilising the grid with pumped storage or the large inertia of more heavy turbine-spinning reserves, normally supplied by coal and nuclear. The CSIR plan will be roughly 20% more expensive than planned. Therefore we need nuclear.
“There is a possibility that the nuclear tender price will be too high, in which case we will have to make do without. However, I expect that competition from the nuclear countries in the East will bring the construction cost down and that we shall thus build the planned nuclear reactors.”
Serfontein believes that the dramatic reductions in the prices of alternatives means that a “fleet” of various renewables, backed by gas turbines fuelled with imported natural gas, might make a positive contribution to the South African power supply, but then the current practice of buying wind and solar through the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, without the necessary gas power and pumped storage backup must be stopped immediately as intermittent power that is ‘now there, and then gone’ is largely useless to industry and leads to load shedding.
“Our first priority should now be to stablise our grid by bringing in more gas, hydro and pumped storage back-up power and more heavy turbine-spinning reserve in the form of nuclear. Only then should we resume the deployment of wind and solar PV.
“This interchange of build sequence will save billions of rands and will bring us security of power supply,” concludes Serfontein.
Nascent gas industry
At the moment, mining gas requires a permit through the department of mineral resources. However, it is hoped to eventually have comprehensive and stand-alone gas legislation so that gas is not tainted by the historical complexities in the mining sector.
As the basis of supporting the objectives of the Integrated Energy Plan the department is finalising a Gas Utilisation Master Plan for South Africa that will be a roadmap for the development of a gas economy, analysing the potential and opportunity for the development of South Africa’s gas economy.
At the recent Africa Gas Forum, Webber Wentze oil and gas expert John Smelcer said: “We are on the cusp of a new industry but significant challenges remain to lift-off.
“The potential is evident, but today’s leading oil and gas executives in Africa will need to stay on top of emerging challenges and opportunities to remain competitive in this nascent industry.”
What do we need?
Energy infrastructure is a critical component of the National Development Plan and underpins economic activity and growth across the country. The NDP requires the development of 10 000MWs additional electricity capacity to be established by 2025 against the 2013 baseline of 44 000MWs.
In line with the national commitment to transition to a low carbon economy, 17 800MW of the 2030 target are expected to be from renewable sources, with 5 000MW to be operational by 2019 and a further 2 000MW (a combined 7 000MW) operational by 2020.