South Africa's Eskom 'blatantly distorted' renewable energy costs From the article: Power utility Eskom is being accused of blatantly distorting the facts associated with the cost of renewable power purchases. Cape Town-based environmental and climate change non-profit organisation ‘Project 90 by 2030', together with the South African Renewable Energy Council (SAREC), and various independent energy bodies, have come out in strong opposition to Eskom's claims that renewable energy posted a net loss of R9 billion in 2016. Eskom arrived at this figure by using a methodology developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which showed the economic benefit of renewables in the first six months of 2015 to be almost R4 billion. "Through the national renewable energy programme, there have been a number of bidding windows (BW). During this process the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) dropped from R3.65/kWh in BW1 to R0.62/kWh in BW4 expedited. Wind power dropped from R1.51 to R0.62 per kWh over the same timeframe. Coal IPPs come in at R1.03/kWh, and Eskom's new Medupi and Kusile power stations have current levelised cost of electricity estimated at R1.05 and R1.17 per kWh respectively. "While a proper comparison should be across all the IPPs, however you look at it, wind and solar PV are now cheaper than coal for new build electricity production." See http://ift.tt/2jRgEQy
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