South Africa’s coal-fired power stations are retiring. The country must replace a huge amount of electricity over the next two decades. Currently, coal still supplies 74% of the country’s power. But the government’s national energy plan has largely overlooked one technology South Africa is particularly suited to build: concentrating solar power.
There are two main ways of generating electricity from the sun. Photovoltaic (rooftop) solar panels convert sunlight directly into electricity. Big concentrating solar power farms use mirrors to concentrate sunlight into heat. This heat is then used to produce steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.
