Renewable Energy Now Urgent in SA
Before 2022 snatched the title of South Africa's worst year for load shedding, 2021 held the record, with 1165 hours. However, 96.5% of last year’s load shedding could have been eliminated with the addition of 5GW of wind and solar (the approximate capacity of two Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme bidding rounds). With load shedding causing lost economic output of about R700 million per stage per day and contributing to the loss of more than one-million job opportunities, accelerated renewable energy adoption is critical.
Expediting the rollout of renewable energy projects to supplement the grid sooner requires the release of funding as well as the approval, sign off and implementation of projects to be sped up. With the Government no longer limiting how much private producers can generate and scrapping the requirement to have a license, these are steps in the right direction.
The next step is ensuring that only quality products are used in the installation of solar and wind power plants and that the work is carried out by trained professionals. It has been shown time and time again that the use of inferior products and shoddy installation have resulted in renewable projects being unable to sustain 24/7 supply to the grid. This could have costly impacts, not only for the country in the form of further load shedding, but for renewable energy power producers too since Eskom penalises them for downtime.
To this end, Tank offers a wide range of cable accessories from TE Connectivity/Raychem, which are approved by leading equipment manufacturers around the world such as Siemens and ABB. These products help to future-proof installations because of their high quality and compliance with global and local standards. Products include heat shrink, cold shrink and dry type cable termination solutions; DC and onshore grid connections; switchgear and transformer solutions, as well as insulation and protection solutions, amongst others.
Tank also offers comprehensive EWSeta accredited training on the installation of these products to ensure that not only are they installed properly, but safely too.
With the South African economy contracting in the second quarter of 2022, largely as a consequence of Stage 6 load shedding, the country can no longer afford to hobble the rollout of renewable energy projects. Now is the time for the public and private sectors to harness Tank’s technologies and training to propel renewable energy adoption forward. Together, we can end load shedding once and for all.