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World Bank withholds support for renewable energy in South Africa

It’s not just activists who are up in arms: the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce is calling for a national investigation into Eskom’s “sweetheart deals” for big industrial energy users at the expense of everyone else.

World Bank Gives South Africa Lumps of Coal, THE HUFFINGTON POST, by Lori Pottinger, 10 March 2010, In case you didn’t catch it, the World Bank’s top official for Africa just thumbed her nose at the dozens of renewable energy companies lining up to build clean energy in Africa’s dirtiest economy.Obiageli Ezekwesili, the Bank’s Vice President for Africa, defended a controversial $3.75-billion loan to build a massive coal plant in South Africa with this head-in-the-sand statement: “There is no viable alternative to safeguard South Africa’s energy security at this particular time.”

Maybe Ms. Ezekwesili missed the news that South Africa could get 10-20% of its electricity from wind power in the short term (and up to 70% over time), by harvesting some of its 50,000 MW of potential (it currently has just one 5MW commercial wind farm in place). Or that the sunny nation also has huge potential for solar (one study shows 547 gigawatts in potential for grid-based concentrating solar plants, not to mention equally impressive potential for solar water heating and solar PV).

Writes a local columnist, “Research shows that in conjunction with energy efficiency measures, 75% our electricity could be generated by exploiting renewable energy sources by 2050, slashing our CO2 emissions by 54% below 1990 levels and making massive strides towards avoiding catastrophic climate change.” But the national utility, Eskom, has been despairingly slow to move away from coal to embrace a green energy future……….

It’s not just activists who are up in arms: the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce is calling for a national investigation into Eskom’s “sweetheart deals” for big industrial energy users at the expense of everyone else. Unions, too, have recently joined a coalition calling on the World Bank to drop the project.

Lori Pottinger: World Bank Gives South Africa Lumps of Coal

March 10, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, South Africa | energy efficiency, renewable energy, renewables