Future wind deployment scenarios for South Africa

Abstract

South Africa has historically had a predominantly coal based energy system and a particularly coal dominated electricity system due to a large domestic coal resource and favourable coal generation technology economics. A more recently well understood wind (and solar) resource in South Africa combined with large geographical land-area and technology cost reductions globally and domestically for wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) has made these technologies more than competitive with alternatives. As a result, wind (and solar PV) have significant roles to play in the future South African electricity system. The potential role of wind in particular is quantified in this research where a least-cost scenario-based electricity sector capacity expansion planning exercise is undertaken. The results of this show that a considerable deployment of wind into the future should be expected where in least-cost scenarios ˜15-25 GW of installed wind capacity by 2030 (˜10-20% of the energy mix), ˜40-60 GW by 2040 (˜20-40% of the energy mix) and ˜60-85 GW by 2050 (45-50% of the energy mix) is cost-optimal. By 2050, least-cost scenarios are 5-12% cheaper than Business-as-usual scenarios, emit 55-60% less CO2 and use 55-60% less water. Regardless of scenario, results show a consistent and growing build-out of wind capacity to 2050 in South Africa revealing that it is cost-optimal to deploy wind capacity at the rate of at least 0.8-1.0 GW/yr to 2030 and 3-4 GW/yr therafter to 2050.