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Energy security — not just electricity supply — threatens the sovereignty of the country. Shortages of liquid fuels, oil and gas are also proving to be big challenges for South Africa. Due to other problems in the world, importing liquid fuels is not sustainable. In addition, some of the country’s big refineries will soon shut down to avoid costly refurbishments and upgrades to comply with the latest environmental legislation and stipulated minimum emissions standards.
These developments are not helping the country deal with poverty, unemployment and inequality. Energy is a catalyst for economic development and the country’s energy challenges must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
For the current energy challenges, South Africa must respond and adopt similar disaster-management strategies as those used to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. It is time to acknowledge that we have gone past the crisis stage in our energy challenges and we are now in a state of emergency.
This piece focuses on the technical aspects of electricity supply recovery. The challenges and proposed solutions for the financial aspects of electricity supply recovery and the other forms of energy (such as liquid and gas fuels) will be discussed in separate follow-up opinion pieces.
South Africa has experienced severe load-shedding almost daily since Tuesday, 6 September 2022, with load-shedding stages repeatedly going up as high as stage six (6 000 megawatt load reduction) for substantial periods. The year 2022 was the worst year in the history of Eskom’s load-shedding, as shown in the graphic below.
Yet, there seem to be no credible detailed plans to end this nightmare. Rather, it appears that the country is being primed to accept load-shedding as a part and parcel of life. It will take many years, perhaps decades, for South Africa to recover economically from the dire consequences of this excessive load-shedding.
To illustrate the point, let us assume each stage of full-day load-shedding cost the economy about R1 billion (this is being conservative!), and also assume full-day load-shedding was on average at stage three for about 160 days from January 2022 to December 2022. This implies a cost of R480bn to the economy. This is equivalent to 31% of the total revenue collected by the South African Revenue Services (Sars) for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2022 or 41% of GDP (by the latest measure).
On top of this, many companies (especially smaller companies that can’t afford backup and alternative energy sources) have closed and jobs have been lost due to load-shedding. Service delivery has suffered as well, mainly affecting poor communities, schools, universities, hospitals, clinics, postal offices and police stations.
Some of these public service providers operated under extremely difficult circumstances, and it is unlikely that these critical institutions will survive further severe load-shedding in 2023. Therefore urgent interventions are required, not just planning forever!
There are many contributory factors that led to Eskom’s electricity supply challenges. These range from high levels of debt and other financial challenges to environmental, political and leadership issues as well as policy misalignment. It has also suffered from inadequate fleet maintenance, coal quality challenges, corruption, criminal activities and low staff morale, to name but a few.
It is all well and good to state the problems regarding how we got here, but we need to focus on what needs to be done next.
The following short-term (2023 to 2025), medium-term (2026 to 2030) and long-term (2031 and beyond) interventions are proposed to secure electricity security in South Africa.
Short-term electricity supply interventions
Improve performance at Eskom power plants:
Eskom to add capacity and address environmental regulations:
Eskom to address people, skills and governance issues:
Short-term IPP electricity supply interventions
Short-term municipal and industrial demand interventions
Short-term residential demand interventions
Short-term policy interventions
Medium-term Eskom supply interventions
Other medium-term supply interventions
Medium-term demand interventions
Long-term Eskom supply interventions
Other long-term supply interventions
Long-term demand interventions
We are in a state of emergency with regard to the current state of the electricity sector. To avoid a total system collapse in the next coming months or years, urgent actions must be taken to address this situation.
There are no perfect plans, but there are plans/actions that can be implemented now to initiate a turnaround. The plans and options provided in this opinion piece can be used to drive the country towards a more balanced energy transition that takes into account the current realities faced by South Africa.
Dr Zwanani Titus Mathe, PrEng, is the chief executive of the South African National Energy Development Institute, established in 2011 to direct, monitor and conduct energy research and development, promote energy research and technology innovation as well as undertake measures to promote energy efficiency throughout the economy.
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