The country’s first micro-hydropower plant, on an Eastern Cape river, might not be the solution to SA’s electricity crisis, but it will light up about 50 households.

If this pilot project is replicated or adapted in water-rich provinces such as the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, it could deliver green electricity to many isolated rural communities.

“South Africa is a dry country compared with the rest of the world, but there is no reason the country’s water resources cannot be tapped to deliver green electricity to many isolated rural communities,” said Marco van Dijk, a civil engineering lecturer at the University of Pretoria (UP), who helped design and build the plant...