The Old Diocesan Issue 10 - Magazine - Page 25
NEWS
WHY ARE
SO MANY BIG
TECH PIONEERS
SUCH JERKS?
GOING
SOLA
PAUL McCABE PHOTOGRAPH ANDRÉ GARCÍA SAUVAGE
The SOLA Group, with multiple ODs involved, continues its groundbreaking
work to help resolve the ongoing energy crisis in South Africa. Late last year,
the independent power producer started work on a 195MW solar farm in the
Free State that will wheel and sell energy across the country to multiple buyers
on flexible terms – a national first. In the words of CEO Dom Wills (1999K),
pictured above, as reported in Engineering News in December 2023, “SOLA
is pioneering the first steps towards a more flexible and efficient electricity
system, and makes use of the existing Eskom wheeling framework to bring
choice and flexibility to South African businesses.” In January 2024, it was
reported by ITWeb that the “project is one of the first multi-buyer programmes
in South Africa and is expected to reach commercial operations under numerous
power purchase agreements in the middle of 2025”. Other ODs involved include
brothers Simon (1997G) and Chris Haw (1999F), co-founders of SOLA, as well
as James Price (1995G), Oliver Braithwaite (2005F), Pete Haw (2005F) and
James Dry (2013O). This is the fourth utility-scale renewable wheeling project
that SOLA has begun construction on since 2022.
Turns out this magazine’s editor,
Tim Richman (1995B), moonlights
in his spare time. In December 2023,
Tim offered his thoughts on the
question above in a Daily Maverick
feature, though his subeditors used
a ruder term to headline the article…
As DM168 editor Heather Robertson
put it in her editorial, the question
“might sound simplistically cynical,
but it speaks to how our whole way
of being has been upended and
manipulated by Big Tech – including
the violence and harm caused by
unchecked social media and, more
scarily, unchecked and unregulated
artificial intelligence…” Tim was
interviewed about the article by
John Maytham on CapeTalk.
HIGH ENERGY SCHOLAR
2021 Bishops Rhodes Scholar Daniel Tate (2016G) was
awarded his MPhil from Oxford last year, his thesis topic
being “Regional Powers & Energy Integration: South Africa
in the Southern African Power Pool”. Daniel is now tackling
his DPhil in international relations, continuing his research
into multinational energy co-operation in Africa. In
November, he was invited to speak at the Energy 2050
Summit in London on the topic “Renewable Energy:
Turning the Energy Crisis into a Green Sprint”.
THE OLD DIOCESAN | 21