South Africa’s low-grade coal is abundant and easily mined. Surely this makes coal-fired power much cheaper than solar?
The dynamics of the coal supply chain have changed rapidly over the past few years. In South Africa a new coal supply infrastructure is needed to run the current plants, which are running at maximum capacity. Coal prices have doubled in the last year and prices are expected to be between 5 and 10 times higher within 2 years. Solar thermal power plants use no fossil fuel and are capable of generating power for the same price as coal-fired power right now. Since cost of materials for the solar power plants is decreasing dramatically, a Ride the Ray solar thermal power plant will actually be cheaper than coal by 2010.