From a national perspective, the major dam storage facilities are in the low category, meaning that, historically, 75% of the time our major dam water resources have been higher than the levels at which they are presently. However, more concerning is the situation relating to the Vaal where the Vaal dam is at 70% – but this is in the low category being 13% lower than last year at the same time.
The result is a low number of large renewable-energy generation projects and limited uptake of water-efficient renewable technologies. There is undoubtedly a need to add further wind and solar projects to the energy grid to take pressure off Eskom’s current power generation capacity.
The hydropower potential, even though each individual scheme is small, collectively represents a significant resource and should be utilised. This could further reduce the power generation load from existing facilities. Hopefully, this will produce a shift away from the water expensive technologies and ensure unused existing power potential assets in South Africa.
What strategy should South Africa adopt to ensure it can reduce both energy and water scarcity in the future?Separate power generation from transmission, allowing the transmission network to purchase generation from any energy producer.Encourage the development of water-efficient power production technologies such as wind and photovoltaic solar.