Between May 2019 and 2024, 16 mining companies registered 242MW of private electricity generation with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). Of these registrations, 93% were for solar power.

Harmony Gold has the highest number of registrations for private solar power at 144MW for its mines in the Free State. Harmony is followed by Glencore with 60MW registered.

Harmony Gold said last year that their solar installations would save the mining company R425-million a year in electricity costs and help it reach net zero by 2045. It plans to finish installing solar power at its mines by 2025.

The only mining company to install a power source other than solar was Samancor Chrome, which registered 17MW of gas electricity for its Gauteng smelter.

The province with the highest number of registrations by mining companies is Gauteng, where seven out of 20 companies registered private power generation with Nersa.

Although green hydrogen’s contribution to reducing global carbon dioxide emissions is pegged at only 4%, it could help decarbonise the industries that have been notoriously difficult to clean up:

– The mining industry plans to use green hydrogen to power large fleets of supersized trucks

– Green hydrogen aviation fuel will help clean up air travel

– The intense heat produced by hydrogen can be used to smelt steel and other metals instead of coal

– The large amounts of CO2 produced by ammonia and methanol production will be eliminated by green hydrogen

No emissions are created by the production of green hydrogen, which uses renewable resources such as wind or solar.

Using it to clean up South Africa’s domestic industries would help the country avoid carbon tax penalties imposed by its trading partners, especially the EU.

Green hydrogen could also create a much-needed export revenue stream.

Expert opinion is mixed about the central role hydrogen will play in curbing global warming. But South Africa looks set to become a bigger player in the global hydrogen market, which will bring billions of dollars into the fiscus.  

Today 99.9% of hydrogen is extracted from fossil fuels, usually gas. It is used mostly for refining oil and making industrial chemicals such as ammonia (used in fertilisers, solvents, explosives) and methane (used in plastics). 

New green hydrogen is made using solar and wind power to perform water electrolysis, resulting in the creation of environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel. It will be used more widely, including in fuel cells for cars, for powering buildings and even as next-generation zero-emission jet fuel. Green hydrogen is carbon neutral to produce, and it emits only harmless water vapour when used.

South Africa has ambitious plans to produce green hydrogen on a massive scale and figures on exporting to countries with aggressive carbon dioxide emission targets to meet. Green hydrogen is critical for decarbonising heavy industries and transport sectors.

Locally, South Africa uses 2.4-million tonnes of grey hydrogen a year, made mostly by Sasol. It is a mere 2% of global hydrogen production, but the government is looking to double it, starting with several high-profile green hydrogen projects. If realised, these green hydrogen projects could add nearly R180-billion a year to the GDP.

This bullish outlook rests on three things South Africa has in abundance:

– Lots of sun and wind for making renewable energy

– Expertise in our own, patented Fischer-Tropsch process for producing hydrogen, and

– 70% share of global platinum reserves essential for making the electrolysers used to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water

Almost 7,000MW of private energy generation had been registered by the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) by the end of March 2024. About a third of this is wind power, mostly for wind farms.

The largest wind projects in SA are Hendrina South in Mpumalanga and Mulilo De Aar 2 South in the Northern Cape, each registered to generate 200MW. These facilities were two of seven wind farms registered in March 2023. Their combined capacity of 1,058MW was half the total power registered with Nersa between 2018 and 2024.

The Northern Cape has the highest number of registered private wind projects at 703MW, followed by the Western Cape (547MW) and the Eastern Cape (392MW). Two wind farms on the border of the Northern and Eastern Cape have a combined capacity of 290MW.

Farms and a fishing company registered the remaining wind power, with projects of 1MW or less.

In 2023, global imports of solar panels from China surged to 219,082MW, marking a significant increase from the previous year’s 164,164MW. However, Africa’s share in these imports remained disproportionately low, accounting for a mere 4%.

South Africa emerged as the primary importer in 2023, acquiring nearly half of the total imports to Africa, amounting to 4,343MW.

Other African nations also contributed to the import statistics, with Egypt securing 1,017MW, representing approximately 10% of the total and Nigeria securing 9% with 861MW. Egypt built its 1,650MW solar park Benban in 2018 and commissioned it a year later.

Africa has 60% of the world’s solar potential, which makes it ideal to adopt solar energy on the continent, but its uptake of Chinese solar panels remains modest.

As the world transitions towards renewable energy sources, bridging this gap and fostering greater access to solar technology in Africa could be pivotal in addressing energy poverty and achieving sustainable development goals.

Despite its more than 2,500 hours of sunshine a year, the uptake of solar power in South Africa has historically been slow. This has been changing, largely thanks to Eskom’s woes and rolling power cuts. There are now 51 operational solar farms in the country. As part of SA’s independent power producer programme, they have a combined potential of almost 2,800MW.

Two-thirds of South Africa’s solar farms are in the Northern Cape, which has a solar capacity of 1,995MW.

The solar industry employed about 20,000 people in 2022. That number could grow this year, with R12-billion worth of solar panels imported into South Africa between January and June 2023.

Solar makes up just 3% of South Africa’s energy mix and the country is still far from meeting its Renewable Energy Masterplan target of 6,400MW of solar power by 2030.

As the second-biggest continent, Africa has 60% of the world's solar potential, but it produces less than 2% of the world's power. Even far smaller regions such as Oceania and Latin America generate more than Africa. With a total production of 17 terawatt hours – a unit of energy equal to generating 1-trillion watts for one hour – all of Africa produces less than some countries in Europe, such as Italy (25TWh) and Spain (27TWh). In 2021 France produced almost as much as the whole of Africa (15.7TWh). South Africa, Egypt and Morocco produce more than 70% of Africa’s solar power. Coal-dependent South Africa generated 6.7TWh, or 40% of the continent's total solar power, in 2021.