Solar could supply SA energy - expert
2012-07-23 10:26
Concentrated solar power has emerged as a renewable energy alternative. (AP)
Duncan Alfreds
Cape Town - Solar energy could deliver 15 times the current electrical demand in SA if there was sufficient investment in new technology, a researcher has said.
"One of the funny things about solar is that South Africans just don't know it. And it does provide an extremely large potential - much bigger for instance - than wind," Paul Gauché senior researcher and director of the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group (Sterg) in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University told News24.
Gauché conceded that wind power was a maturing technology and even photovoltaic (PV) solar energy was viable with accelerated investment into the sector.
"The potential for PV is immense: If we put PV farms up everywhere we could easily get more than enough power generated in the country, but the problem with both PV and wind is their intermittence," he said.
Gauché is proposing investment into concentrated solar power (CSP) where a set of mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a collector which then acts like a traditional electrical generating plant.
"One of the funny things about solar is that South Africans just don't know it. And it does provide an extremely large potential - much bigger for instance - than wind," Paul Gauché senior researcher and director of the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group (Sterg) in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University told News24.
Gauché conceded that wind power was a maturing technology and even photovoltaic (PV) solar energy was viable with accelerated investment into the sector.
"The potential for PV is immense: If we put PV farms up everywhere we could easily get more than enough power generated in the country, but the problem with both PV and wind is their intermittence," he said.
Gauché is proposing investment into concentrated solar power (CSP) where a set of mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a collector which then acts like a traditional electrical generating plant.
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