Complexity in deploying renewable energy technologies
- 1. 1 Complexity in deploying renewable energy technologies A South African Renewable Energy Case Study Mbali Mabaso 21 November 2016, Frontiers of Low Carbon Development
- 2. 2 • How to best transition towards a sustainable growth trajectory? (complex interactions) • Which technologies to procure? • How much capacity is required? • In which regions should these be placed?
- 3. 3 How do we transition from a proven/feasible technology into a successfully implemented project within a community?
- 4. 4 “A complex system is defined as being an open or embedded system; having non-linear and rich interactions; being in a state of non-equilibrium and displaying complex causality; displaying emergent properties; and some form of self- organisation” - (Cilliers, 2000)
- 5. 5 Source: City of Tshwane (2015)
- 6. 6 Source: Brent et al. (2009) Not accessible to national grid 6 Wind turbines(6kWp) & 540 solar PV panels 112 households connected 97kW peak system 3kWh per household, per month
- 7. 7 NPO: Engineering Education Research Spin-off: Utility Scale Solar Thermal Energy Social Enterprise: Micro-grid Rural Solar PV Electrification
- 8. 8 How to proceed without being paralyzed? 1. Have foresight to make soft issues priorities (relevant to boundary) 2. Resilience is the new robust for engineering systems 3. Transparent reductionism
- 9. 9
- 10. 10 5 % Hydro + RE 6 % Fuel + others 4 % Nuclear 85 % Coal Brent AC, Rogers DE, Renewable rural electrification: Sustainability assessment of mini-hybrid off-grid technological systems in the African context, Renewable Energy (2009), doi:10.1016/j.renene.2009.03.028 Cilliers, P. (2000). What Can We Learn from a Theory of Complexity. Emergence, 2(1), 23 -33. City of Tshwane, 2015. Framework for a Green Economy Transition, Available at: http://resilientcities2015.iclei.org/fileadmin/RC2015/files/Framework_for_a_Green_Economy_Transition.pdf.