Biomass could be power for the people if a sweet Eskom deal comes along, says SA Sugar
Minister in the presidency for electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has called for private sector cooperation to add more power to the grid in the battle against loadshedding.
Ramokgopa was addressing the business community in Kwazulunatal at the Durban Exhibition Centre this week, where he outlined the work government had done to combat the load-shedding crisis.
Though he was coy on when exactly load-shedding will end, he did indicate that significant inroads have been made.
“We need an additional 4,000MW and 2,500MW will come from the three generation units that is Medupi unit 4, Kusile unit 6 as well as the Koeberg unit 2. We are confident that on the demand side we can claw back the 1,500MW ...” he said.
The Medupi and Kusile units will come back in September, while Koeberg is set for November, should they get the go-ahead from the nuclear energy regulator.
However, there are interim interventions being made to meet the demand, including an accelerated rollout of rooftop solar solutions and the return by the end of March of the generating units that have been out for planned maintenance.
He also invited independent power producers (IPPS) to work with Eskom to roll out renewable energy generation.
Ramokgopa said Eskom has the land and grid access, which are two of the three major requirements for renewable energy, they just don’t have the necessary funds to finance the implementation part.
“These are big MW, anything upwards of 50MW, which requires significant tracks of land,” he said.
“What Eskom does not have, is a strong balance sheet to finance that we know the private sector is sitting on,” he said.
“So if you bring all of these things together: Eskom’s share of the land and grid access and the private sector finance, we will be able to roll out.
“They can operate over a period and then return the asset to Eskom so Eskom continues being a major player in the generation side and it’s not just exclusively private sector.”
He said they were “aggressively” working on new generation and transmission capacity from private sector, a process that has already started.
Businesses indicated that they were ready to contribute to energy generation, with the sugar cane industry offering to contribute biomass energy.
Sam Maphumulo, sustainability manager for the South African Sugar Association, said they are eagerly waiting for the thumbs-up for the inclusion of biomass, especially in KZN and Mpumalanga where sugar cane is one of the biggest agricultural commodities.
“We generate our own electricity using the gas from sugar cane, so we’re waiting for the right tariff to export additional power to the grid,” she said.
“We’re already doing it. We do export some through the Eskom standard offer programme, but we can generate up to 700MW if all the mills came online and exported part of the grid.”
The 700MW can be generated if they used all of their 14 mills, but only 12 are operational at present.
“We need updated equipment that needs the right tariff to reward capital investment.”
Maphumulo said load-shedding had already inhibited the industry in many ways.
“As much as we co-generate and create energy for ourselves but during off-season we rely on some Eskom power, so we also suffer during those times. Our sugar cane farmers who irrigate also lose yields when there is load-shedding.”
Another positive thing about biomass, she said, is that it’s agriculture-based, which is a highly work intensive sector that translates to more employment opportunities.
Khutso Ntseki, MD for Zenco Energy, said Ramokgopa’s presentation had been clear on what is happening with the grid and where IPPS like them would fit in to assist in the fight against load-shedding.
“The biggest opportunity, not only for myself but other entrepreneurs as well, is the assembling of the PV solar and winning agreements, working with the municipality to add to the 100Mwworth of infrastructure that is due to be commissioned,” he said.
Ramokgopa said they are working to reduce the intensity of loadshedding until the point the country does not have it but cautioned that it would require even more economic growth before loadshedding can be pronounced as defeated.
“For the economy to grow at a certain rate, the assumption is that the generation curve must be ahead of the growth. We must have additional generation capacity to support the growth that we want.”
“We will get to a stage where we consistently don’t have load-shedding, but once we get there we will have a flurry of investment coming into the SA economy, so we will still need additional generation.”
“We don’t want to have episodes of no load-shedding and we say it is done, only for it to come back. The credibility will go down the drain.”
Eskom has the land and grid access, which are two of the three major requirements for renewable energy