SA to burn coal for a very long time – Mantashe

Expecting a rapid transition from dependence on coal-fired power generation to clean energy would be “very wrong”, and South African will need to use the fossil fuel for longer to address electricity shortage.

This is according to Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Johannesburg.

This reiteration of his view, that coal will continue to play a vital role in the country’s energy mix, comes as wealthy nations look for ways to invest in technologies that help decarbonise the country.

Mantashe said clean-energy technologies that rely on intermittent factors like sunshine or wind are less reliable than coal plants that are able to run 24 hours a day. “This belief that you can leave coal and move to renewables: there’s a technical mistake, very wrong, it will never work,” he said.

Eskom is struggling to meet demand for power mainly because its coal-fired plants are unreliable and keep breaking down, resulting in outages of up to 12 hours a day.

The government’s focus on improving the energy availability factor at coal-fired plants has helped reduce power cuts and is expected to eventually eliminate them, Mantashe said.

“Coal is going to be around for a long time; for a longer time than many people expect it will be,” he said.

Mantashe, who is also chair of the ANC, conceded the party had made key mistakes in the energy sector during its 30 years in power – specifically on delays in building new power plants, and the flawed design that was used when they were built.“That is one of those mistakes and we are learning out of it,” he said.

Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile stations are still being fixed after construction lagged years behind schedule at a bloated cost from original estimates. –