Researchers said reaching a 15% renewable energy consumption target by 2020 would be a little more expensive than the average energy costs baseline. University of Cape Town researcher Dr. Andrew Marquard said at the National Renewable Energy conference that when combined with an energy efficiency program, average electricity costs could be lower than the baseline from 2015 to 2020.
“The 15% target is feasible and affordable. It is challenging to implement, particularly the investment costs, but significant sustainable development will result from this. Partner programs are very important in reducing costs and benefiting mitigation," Marquard said.
With the additional sweetener of carbon finance for both the energy efficiency program and the renewable energy program, average electricity costs could drop to 18% below the baseline price by 2020, Marquard’s study showed.
Diversifying the energy mix away from coal formed an important part of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s (Deat’s) long-term mitigation scenario process on climate change, and, targets for renewable energy’s contribution to this energy mix were yet to be set.
“Such a program would have less of an impact on the electricity price, than this year’s price increase,” said Marquard. “The alternatives to electricity supply from coal in South Africa are renewable energy and nuclear. This study suggests that the renewables option is not more expensive than nuclear,” he added.
He stated that the four areas where supportive programs would help reduce costs were: research and development; infrastructure development; industrial strategy and energy efficiency.
“South Africa has the necessary institutional, technical and physical infrastructure to achieve this target, and committing to such a target would put South Africa in a leading position internationally among developing countries, making renewables part of a measurable, reportable, and verifiable mitigation action,” Marquard concluded.