Necessity for a variable renewable energy forecasting hub in a changing climate and energy system in South Africa

Abstract South Africa has experienced challenges to meet the energy demand of its citizens, let alone achieve a Just Energy Transition. This mainly due to grid capacity issues and slow rollout of new generation capacity. These are not unsolvable stumbling blocks and with better queuing rules for grid space and efforts to expedite grid and generation capacity expansion, confidence can be restored in the public renewable energy procurement programme. The latest Eskom transmission development plan highlights heavily building out the grid over the next 10 years to facilitate projected renewable energy production growth. Although variable renewable energy (VRE) resources are growing, at present, the stability and cost to the power system can be optimized with improved accuracy of VRE production forecasts. In a changing climate where temperatures in South Africa are projected to increase at double the global average, understanding the performance and impact of climate change and fluctuating frequency of extreme weather events on these facilities in the medium and long term, is important for the sustainability of the South African energy system as it justly transitions to renewables. Methodologies for forecasting VRE in short-, medium- and long-term temporal resolutions are presented in Landwehr (2018) and Landwehr et al. (2023a, b) and highlighted here. In this paper the imperative for the development of a VRE Forecasting Hub in South Africa for all temporal resolutions is outlined. This to facilitate better VRE forecasting, risk mitigation and adaptation at varying timescales of VRE production. A blueprint for such a VRE Forecasting Hub is presented.