Towards the exploration of renewable energy technologies as an alternative to grid extension for rural electrification in South Africa

This paper examines the economic viability of stand-alone, household-sized renewable energy technologies, namely wind generator and solar photovoltaic (PV) for application in remote and rural areas of South Africa. Three reference technologies are chosen. These are two solar PV systems for solar conditions and one wind turbine. It is found for all regions that levelized costs of PV energy are lower than the cost of energy from gasoline gen-set, and are cost-competitive with grid extension, especially for areas with low load density and low number of households to be electrified. Regarding wind energy, the viability is dependent on the location due to the wide variation of wind resource to topography. However, in locations with proper resources, wind energy is even more cost-competitive than solar PV. Thus, the use of either wind generator or solar PV is economically feasible in rural villages and remote areas of South Africa. Policy recommendations for promoting the market development of renewable energy technologies are discussed in the final section of the paper.