he transparency and robustness of the presidential climate commission stakeholder and modelling processes is questionable.No-one can usurp the role of the mineral resources & energy department as being primarily responsible for energy planning in SA. It has an enormous responsibility to keep in touch with the latest science and take a broad set of stakeholder and expert inputs into account when planning. It should do this every two years.
First, it is critical that any planning is done in an inclusive and transparent way. All the analysis requires public consultation and maximum transparency. The commission and the department are looking to work together on a more technical review process of the assumptions we make and how they relate to local and international trends and data.
We agree that there is some uncertainty about long-term energy security at higher levels of renewable energy grid penetration. For this reason we make a recommendation in our report to do a more detailed spatial plan that deals with grid availability, the need to invest in the grid and how we would ensure grid level security adequacy in the long term.
As Mashele points out, we need to consider “GDP growth, transmission capacity, system and grid requirements, technology planning and optimisation, ancillary services, carbon policy, energy prices and expected results”.But this should also include climate change, water and air quality. The latest climate science, published in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth
Assessment Report, requires the global decarbonisation of the power sector by the early 2040s to stay within 1.5°C of warming. To miss this target would have consequences for more extreme climate events, decreased water availability and increased food insecurity, and increased deaths and health impacts for people. Notably, these impacts are worse for the poor.What is needed is a public debate where all parties put their data and assumptions on the table for public review.