6/18/2010 Top 10 Finalists

S imon B erry s tudied elec tric al South Africa is in the midst of an energy crisis. Demand for electricity exceeded supply in
engineering at C ape T own U nivers ity.
2008, due to higher than expected GDP grow th coupled w ith low er than required
H e moved to the U K 6 years ago
where he have been working in the
maintenance and planning. Large tariff increases along with the w orldw ide recession have
des ign and implementation of energy temporarily stopped the rolling blackouts - but they are expected to return by 2011.
s aving building automation s ys tems
for both new- build and retrofit Eskom, their national electricity generator has stated that 20 GW of capacity needs to be
projec ts at a s mall engineering firm added to the grid by 2020, and has recently applied to the World Bank for a $3.75bn loan
(A ndromeda). H e was the lead
to kick start the process. To the casual observer this w ould appear to be the perfect
engineer on the H eathrow's T erminal
5 projec t - where the lighting c ontrol
recipe for massive investment in renew able energy sources - a country w ith plenty of
s ys tem s aves 9 5 0 K in elec tric ity sunshine and fairly constant w ind patterns, a chronic shortage of existing generation
c os ts and 6 ,8 2 1 tonnes of C O 2 per capacity and a rapidly rising electricity price.
annum. H e rec ently c ompleted a
month long M BA c ons ulting projec t How ever the loan application is not for the purchase of wind turbines to capture constant
with A RM L td on the integration of
w inds off the southern coast. Nor is it for a concentrated solar plant for the Northern Cape
s ec ure payment tec hnology with
s mart meters .
Province, w here the solar radiation exceeds that of Nevada, New Mexico, Morocco and
Spain. No, the 3 billion dollars w ill be used to construct a new coal fired pow er station.
Despite South Africa's obvious suitability to sustainable energy, the numbers still show
that it w ill be more affordable to invest in carbon emitting coal generation.

So w hat can be done to make it more feasible for countries such as South Africa to invest
in cleaner energy sources? Cap-and-trade policies? Carbon taxes? Subsidised feed-in-
tariffs? So far none of these seem to have had a significant or long lasting impact on
renew able energy generation.

Changing consumer expectations

The UK's energy regulator recently published the conclusions from a year-long study of
w hat needs to be done to deliver 'secure and sustainable energy' for the next 15 years.
Their core concern is delivering the 'value that customers place on supply security', i.e. to
ensure that there is enough capacity to avoid the rolling blackouts experienced in South
Africa.

How ever, this focus on supply security is exactly the stumbling block to the w idespread
adoption of sustainable energy sources. Consumers in developed countries, who have
grown up w ithout a thought to how much effort goes into providing them w ith a near
100% reliable energy supply expect nothing less.

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