Why blackouts will continue for 5 years

SOUTH Africa is once more experiencing periodic power cuts.

These typically take the form of scheduled supply interruptions, for two to four hours a day, whenever the country’s electricity system is overloaded. Such overloading currently happens 40-50 days a year.

Eskom, the country’s power utility, recently admitted that such interruptions are likely to persist for as long as the next five years. This is because of the increased down-time of the rapidly ageing fleet of coal plants. But it is also due to delays in setting up new power plants.

The decreasing performance of the existing Eskom plants is evident in the steady decline of the energy availability factor. This is a measure of the percentage of total electricity generated compared to what would be achieved when every plant was functioning. The energy availability factor is currently at about 65%. This means that on average 35% of Eskom’s power plants are standing idle at any particular time due to faults or maintenance.

In his 2021 State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa offered an action plan to develop additional power generation capacity in the short to medium term. While these interventions are indeed critical, they don’t go far enough to reach power stability.

The government has since announced eight successful bidders for gas, wind and solar projects under the 2000 megawatt Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme. Most of these projects will only be supplying the grid in 2023.

The programme successfully established South Africa’s renewable energy sector through three bid windows. But it stalled after 2015 when new technologies began to threaten the interests of politically well-connected interest groups in the coal and nuclear sectors.

Projects for a fourth bid window finally received clearance in 2018 following the departure of former president Jacob Zuma, but enthusiasm for renewables has waned again under the current Minister of Mineral Resources, Gwede Mantashe.

The long-awaited fifth round has just been announced after inexplicable delays. Prospective solar and wind farm developers have until August 2021 to submit bids for projects generating in total 1 600 MW of wind and 1000 MW of solar capacity.

The last (2019) instalment of the South African Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity envisaged between 1600 MW and 2600 MW of renewable capacity added to the grid almost every year from 2022 to 2030. With the existing delay, the process to effect upcoming annual additions must be accelerated.

But an early catch-up is unlikely, because the minister only committed to one further renewables round, of the same scale, “within the next 12 months”. It’s, therefore, expected that future rounds will only happen annually, with no more than 2 600 MW being rolled out each time.

At that rate, the wind and solar power contributions to electricity will remain below 10% of the national total for several more years.

In view of their role in global warming, sentiment against new coal plants is now so strong that investment in such projects is extremely unlikely.

On the positive side, this is likely to act as a catalyst for growth in small to medium scale solar installations. Municipalities will also soon be able to set up their local power generation facilities.

So some may escape the power cuts earlier – but investment in such solutions is only for those who can afford it.