CEO Voice – June 2021

CEO Voice – June 2021

Dear Members,

As youth month is drawing to a close, I would like to thank all the young people that participated in our June campaign where we were highlighting the importance of youth in our sector. SAWEA take youth development seriously and places significance on the development of young people as they are the future leaders of the sector. We had more than 15 young people featured in our campaign highlighting the role of youth in the growing renewable energy sector.

Our recent meeting with the IPPO included a discussion on BW5, BW6, and BW7 timelines and the IPPO’s capacity to administer the overlapping bid windows, with the potential of bottlenecks in the industry; BW5 Briefing Notes and Changes in PPAs; Wind Industry Localisation Forum; Data Sharing; Extended Producer Responsibility Programme (relating to end-of-life waste management of wind turbine waste); update on Refi; Additional Megawatt Programme; as well as the proposed Industry BBBEE Charter. I will issue a special communication on the feedback from this meeting.

We had previously strongly lobbied government to take additional power from operational renewable energy plants, so it was great to see that the IPPO had asked IPPs to express interest to participate in the additional MW programme. This was followed by a surprise announcement from President Ramaphosa, regarding increasing the threshold for self-generation projects without requiring a license from 1 MW to 100MW. This easing of the regulatory environment is strong affirmation of a decentralised and liberalised energy sector.

On a global note, the GWEC launched the global wind energy campaign for COP 26. The campaign aims to unite our industry and highlights the key role that wind will play in getting global economies to net zero. However, it also calls out the growing gap between targets and action and issues a powerful call to action to policymakers across the world to unleash the potential of wind power and asks governments to scale up ambition for climate action and wind energy deployment. In order to have a chance to meet the 2050 targets, action over the next decade is vital, as we need to deploy wind at four fold the current rate, in order to meet the NDC commitments and net zero targets.

I wish you good health and safety as the country faces the third wave of CV-19.

Ntombifuthi Ntuli
CEO
South African Wind Energy Association