The South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) has welcomed government’s launch of a public consultation process in relation to its plans to exclude the development and expansion of certain solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage facilities from the requirement to obtain environmental authorisation.

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy on July 22 last year announced that projects that are in areas considered to be of low or medium environmental sensitivity may be potentially exempt from environmental authorisation, to get more energy generation capacity on line quicker.

Creecy believes this intervention would speed up the environmental approval element for solar PV projects to within 60 days and, thereby, simplify the development of solar PV facilities.

Commenting on the news, SAPVIA CEO Dr Rethabile Melamu said the launch of the public consultation is positive news for the solar PV sector following an announcement of plans to gazette the rules a couple of months ago.

Shortening the timeframes for awarding environmental authorisation will result in more rapid rollout of solar PV projects. “This can only be welcomed as it will result in more capacity to the grid.

“Conducting an environmental-impact assessment is one of the lengthiest steps in the broader solar PV project preparation process. While it is vital that the environmental impact is considered holistically, this process typically kicks in well into the project, after other risks have been tackled, as the costs are such a significant portion of development costs,” Melamu explains.

She adds that while SAPVIA welcomes the news that areas of low to medium environmental sensitivity will be subject to a registration process, which will allow for compliance monitoring, it calls on the Minister to consider expanding the exemptions to land with existing mining environmental authorisations already in place.

“The necessary environmental sensitivities have been identified and the opportunity to develop solar projects on mining sites is one that we should capitalise on quickly,” notes Melamu.

The environmental authorisation process is part of all projects' critical development paths. By shortening the process, we will shorten the overall development timelines, which will ultimately bring much-needed capacity online,” she adds.

SAPVIA confirms it will, alongside its members, participate in the consultation process.