{"id":312444,"date":"2019-04-18T12:32:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T10:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=312444"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:32:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T10:32:02","slug":"how-solar-and-wind-power-helped-south-africa-avoid-stage-5-and-6-load-shedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/312444\/how-solar-and-wind-power-helped-south-africa-avoid-stage-5-and-6-load-shedding\/","title":{"rendered":"How solar and wind power helped South Africa avoid stage 5 and 6 load shedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has released a new report looking at the contribution of renewable energy during South Africa’s load shedding crisis.<\/p>\n

With South Africa needing to resort to stage 4 load shedding in February and March, variable renewable energy (VRE) contributed valuable energy and assisted in avoiding further load shedding, the group said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring load shedding periods, Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) contributed 357 GWh in Q1 2019,” said CSIR principal engineer Dr Jarrad Wright.<\/p>\n

“This is significant and shows that there is real value in having this capacity producing during these periods of shortage.<\/p>\n

“Without VRE, we may have needed to invoke stage 5 and 6 load shedding,” said Wright.<\/p>\n

The CSIR’s analysis shows that VRE contributed 2,975 GWh (5.3% of system demand) in Q1 2019 – with instantaneous contributions during load shedding periods being up to 2.3 GW.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s utility-scale VRE fleet currently includes:<\/p>\n