One hundred miles west of Johannesburg in South Africa, the Komati Power Station is tough to overlook, looming above the flat grassland and farming landscapes like an unlimited eruption of concrete, brick, and steel.
When the coal-fired energy station first spun up its generators in 1961, it had twice the capability of any current energy station in South Africa. It has been operational for greater than half a century, however as of October 2022, Komati has been retired—the stacks are chilly and the coal deliveries have stopped.
Now a special sort of exercise is happening on the location, reworking it right into a beacon of fresh vitality: 150 MW of photo voltaic, 70 MW of wind, and 150 MW of storage batteries. The beating of coal-fired swords into sustainable plowshares has grow to be the brand new narrative for the Mpumalanga province, dwelling to most of South Africa’s coal-fired energy stations, together with Komati.
To get right here, the South African authorities has needed to suppose outdoors the field. Phasing out South Africa’s ageing coal-fired energy station fleet—which provides 86 % of the nation’s electrical energy—is dear and politically dangerous, and will come at monumental social and financial price to a nation already battling vitality safety and socioeconomic inequality. In the previous, bits and items of energy-transition funding have are available in from organizations such because the World Bank, which assisted with the Komati repurposing, however for South Africa to really go away coal behind, one thing financially larger and higher was wanted.
That arrived on the COP26 local weather summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021, within the type of a partnership between South Africa, European nations, and the US. Together, they made a deal to ship $8.5 billion in loans and grants to assist pace up South Africa’s transition to renewables, and to take action in a socially and economically simply manner.
This settlement was the primary of what’s being referred to as Just Energy Transition Partnerships, or JETPs, an try to catalyze international finance for rising economies seeking to shift vitality reliance away from fossil fuels in a manner that doesn’t go away sure individuals and communities behind.
Since South Africa’s pioneering deal, Indonesia has signed an settlement value $20 billion, Vietnam one value $15.5 billion, and Senegal one value $2.75 billion. Discussions are happening for a potential settlement for India. Altogether, round $100 billion is on the desk.
There’s important enthusiasm for JETPs within the local weather finance area, notably given the stagnancy of worldwide local weather finance on the whole. At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed nations signed as much as a purpose of mobilizing $100 billion of local weather finance for creating nations per 12 months by 2020. None have met that concentrate on, and the settlement lapses in 2025. The hope is that extra funding for clear-cut methods and commitments will result in faster strikes towards renewables.
South Africa got here into the JETP settlement with a fairly mature plan for a simply vitality transition, specializing in three sectors: electrical energy, new vitality automobiles, and inexperienced hydrogen. Late final 12 months, it fleshed that out with an in depth Just Energy Transition funding plan. Specifically, the plan facilities on decommissioning coal vegetation, offering different employment for these working in coal mining, and accelerating the event of renewable vitality and the inexperienced economic system. It is a clearly outlined however massive process.