ZOHEB KHAN|
SOUTH Africa’s over-reliance on coal-fired power plants places the country among the world’s top carbon emitters and does huge damage to the health of its citizens.
The country has also struggled to maintain a stable energy supply since 2007.
Power cuts are now a regular feature of South African life.
A developmental priority is therefore a transition from highly centralised energy production that depends on diminishing reserves of fossil fuels towards decentralised production of renewable, clean energy.
Ten years ago the government introduced a programme designed to enable the procurement of renewable energy from companies that are independent from the country’s monopoly electricity supplier.
Known as the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, it has, by some measures, been remarkably successful.
It has attracted over R200 billion (over US$13 billion) of private capital to the construction and operation of 77 solar and wind facilities. It also added
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