South Africa urged to explore co-location of wind and solar to maximise limited grid capacity

Co-locating wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities at a single grid connection point could help maximise the use of South Africa’s existing, albeit constrained, transmission network capacity and would improve supply consistency, Enertrag South Africa project development head Mercia Grimbeek argues. Grimbeek notes that, while solar and wind power plants can be built in the fraction of the time needed to build other thermal power solutions, more connecting points on the grid are required to alleviate pressure, especially in the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape provinces.