Business Report writes that close to 2,000 construction jobs, over a period of five to 10 years, could be created for communities in the Northern Cape should the wholly black-owned firm Emvelo proceed to the next five planned stages of its 1,000 megawatt solar power station project.
However, standing in the way of this is the government's new draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which does not envisage any further Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) deployment until 2030, said Emvelo's founder Pancho Ndebele. This was indicated shortly after the group's recent completion of its R11billion solar power station, situated 30km east of Upington, which is now contributing to Eskom's massively constrained power grid. Ndebele said at the peak of construction during the first project about 1,800 jobs were created for the communities in the Northern Cape. “If you look at that environment, most of the people have low skills, but we were able to bring people up to a certain skill level during construction. So effectively, if you were to continue with the second or third project you are actually retaining work opportunities for people in those communities, so that it doesn't stop but continues,” Ndebele pointed out. He said from a construction point of view between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs could be created and in terms of permanent jobs for the running of each solar power plant, around 80 to 100 jobs could be created.
- Read Joseph Booysen’s original report in the regard in full at Business Report
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