A coal-fired plant in South Africa that shut its last unit this week secured $497 million from the World Bank and other funders to generate renewable energy from the site, a project that will serve as a working model for the transition away from fossil fuels.
The move toward cleaner energy is particularly complex in South Africa, which has chronic electricity shortages, is the world’s 13th-biggest source of greenhouse-gas emissions and has one of the highest unemployment rates. State-owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. generates more than 80% of the nation’s power from coal, produced from mines that employ about 90,000 workers.
