CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT ESKOM?
South Africa, it seems, can’t do without the albatross that is our national power utility. But in your home, how close can you get to going off-grid? The FM looks at how to do it, and how to fund it
Unless you live on the moon (or are a government minister swaddled in load-shedding-free ignorance), you’ll know that this year has seen the longest and most intense period of power cuts in South Africa’s history.
Last week, FNB senior economist Thanda Sithole delivered a chilling warning: he expects “around 250 days of load-shedding, predominantly stage 4” this year. In other words, expect the lights to be out for nearly five days a week.
It’s a far cry from the promise made in 2015 by
Cyril Ramaphosa, then the country’s deputy president, when he said: “In another 18 months to two years, you will forget that the challenges that we had with relation to power and energy and Eskom ever happened.”
As it turns out, fixing Eskom is rather like fixing the ANC: a problem that, at best, will take longer than anyone hoped, and arguably isn’t solvable at all.
It doesn’t help to point out the obvious: the ANC government was warned in 1998 that an energy crisis loomed, prompted by demand as the economy opened up — yet it did nothing.
By 2008, when the government finally creaked into action, it was to approve the stupendous spending on the Medupi and Kusile power stations (for which the ANC would get a cut through its front company, Chancellor House). But by then, skills had dried up inside Eskom, and ANC comrades saw this as a get-richquick scheme.
Today, Eskom at any given time has an energy production deficit of between 4,000MW and 6,000MW (on a 58,000MW grid). Given the utility’s old and ailing power-generation fleet, it is crucial now to get megawatts onto the grid — a key priority for Ramaphosa when he took presidential office in 2018.
After Eskom lost 18,000MW of capacity and propelled the country into stage 6 load-shedding last year, Ramaphosa urged all South Africans to be “part of the solution” and to “contribute in whatever way they can to ending energy scarcity in South Africa”.
And yet, despite all the promises made by Ramaphosa and his party, experts now agree that blackouts will be with us for at least the next two years.
Two weeks ago, in his state of the nation address, Ramaphosa’s central message was “leave no-one behind”. Soothing, but empty words. When it comes to energy, it seems about time to leave the government behind, and contemplate life beyond the state-owned power utility.
But is there a world in which we can truly be free of Eskom? How possible is this? And what would it look like?
Is ‘off grid’ a pipe dream?
Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson says a lot of people talk about going “off-grid”, but it’s not necessarily achievable — or even the most sensible option.
“There are [huge] advantages to being networked on a grid,” he tells the FM. “[It’s] like having a garden service mow your lawn instead of having everyone have their own lawnmowers. [And] if we ever get to the point where you can sell your electricity back to your municipality, you have to be on the grid.”
It’s a sentiment endorsed by Frank Spencer, spokesperson for the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association. “First, going off-grid is not the optimal solution,” he tells the FM. “Keeping the grid as a backup is a good idea, otherwise you would likely
also need a backup generator for the cloudy days.”
So is the dream of life without Eskom a delusion? Says Mallinson: “No, it’s not delusional, but you need to think of Eskom differently: as generation, transmission and distribution.”
When it comes to splitting Eskom, the idea is that by 2030 or 2035 there will be multiple suppliers of electricity on a shared transmission and high-voltage distribution network. South Africans will then have a choice of who to buy electricity from.
Think of it like fibreoptic internet options: one firm has installed the fibre cables, but you choose to buy your internet from different service providers.
Still, “a life without Eskom will still require the transmission and high-voltage distribution system to be operating properly”, warns Mallinson.
In other words, South Africa can’t live without a functional Eskom.
Yet, there is also a world in which you can dramatically cut your reliance on Eskom. So how should you begin doing this?
Karen Surridge, CEO of the SA National Energy Development Institute, tells the FM she has gradually moved much of her house off the grid over a number of years.
“I couldn’t afford to just put up a [solar system] with battery storage — it’s quite a hefty price tag when you want to do it to handle your load,” she tells the FM. “First, I put in a battery as a backup. So the idea was that when I went into load-shedding, the house just switches over to battery.”
Surridge then saved up and, a year later, put solar panels on her roof. “Now the panels charge the battery and run the house during the day. At night, I run on the battery, which [has] charged. So Eskom has become the sort of go-to if I need to fall back on it, but otherwise I’m running on [solar] with the battery.”
The world of kilowatts and battery usage is confusing for generations of South Africans used to flicking a switch to see their house light up. But Surridge says the basic principle is that if something heats up or cools down, it will sap huge amounts of electricity.
“Get that geyser and that stove off your electricity because they both heat up. And if you’ve got aircon units, they do use a lot of electricity as well, but there
are very energy-efficient ones out there now,” she says.
The better options are installing a gas or solarpower geyser, and a gas stove. If you can do that, Surridge says, you’ll have 60% of your electricity needs off the grid.
“Then you can start with all your other energy-efficiency measures. And once you’ve put in your LED lights, if your fridge breaks down buy a more energy-efficient one when you replace it,” she says.
How to fund it?
Banks are making it easier than ever for people to buy, and pay off, backup power solutions. But for those who haven’t taken the plunge, what should they buy? And what is the best way to structure the payments?
Banks typically won’t fund diesel-guzzling generators, which aren’t seen as a sustainable solution (financially, environmentally or otherwise).
Standard Bank, for example, has set up a free “home services platform” called www.looksee.co.za, on which people can source quotes on setting up alternative power solutions.
It offers a no-obligation “home power analysis” tool for backup power solutions, and the bank then offers to finance the capital outlay — from R50,000 to R300,000 — either through an existing home loan or an unsecured, personal loan.
Absa also offers an online “load-shedding solutions finance calculator”, which provides an indication of what your upfront capital outlay and monthly instalments on a loan will be.
For example, Absa’s calculator shows that if you pay R3,000 a month for electricity, expect to fork out anything between R57,000 for a basic battery-only system and R176,500 for a hybrid system.
Monthly repayments range from R1,000 to R4,200, depending on the option you choose.
In Nedbank’s case, it has partnered with Hohm Energy, a solar rooftop marketplace, to help link consumers with accredited suppliers and installers.
Similar to Standard Bank and Absa, Nedbank provides an indicative cost proposal after a virtual consultation. Rental options abound too. GoSolr, for example, rents out a smaller system (a 5kW hybrid inverter, 5.1kWh battery and eight panels) for R1,740 a month. A larger system an 8kW hybrid inverter, 10.2kWh battery and 14 panels will set you back R2,900 a month.
But demand is rising rapidly.
“In the past few weeks, we’ve seen rental companies come to us saying that demand for their products has shot up,” says Rentia van Tonder, head of power, corporate and investment banking at Standard Bank.
Now, with what GoSolr calls “unprecedented levels of load-shedding”, the waiting time for installation is eight weeks in the Western Cape, and more than six weeks in Gauteng.
A dummy’s guide
For those bewildered by the technical jargon bandied about to describe backup
tical example, if you want to power only 20 10W LED lights and a medium-sized LED TV, drawing a total of 0.5kW, a 3.5kWh battery will suffice for four hours.
Are solar panels crucial for a backup system?
No. The batteries store energy to provide a stable supply to the inverter when needed. Technically, you can use the mains power to charge the batteries, rather than rely on solar panels, which augment the supply of electricity and give you more range during load-shedding. But if everyone installs backup systems without solar panels, we are just using batteries to carry us through power cuts. This increases the load on Eskom outside load-shedding periods. If there are tax breaks for solar generation expenses, solar panels will have to be part of your setup if you want to benefit from these incentives. Either way, this is a good time to make the switch.
Can I install this system myself?
No, unless you’re a certified electrician. The inverter must be installed into the distribution board. The cost will depend on how many of your circuit breakers need to be moved to the backup, and how easy this process is. Installation typically ranges from R10,000 to R20,000. The inverter must be approved by the municipality if you want to feed back into the grid. Installing the solar panels is separate, and costs vary widely. x
MJ Booysen (professor in engineering, Stellenbosch University) & Arnold Rix (senior lecturer, electronic and electrical engineering, Stellenbosch University)
This article was first published by The Conversation Africa. This is a shortened version, republished with permission
personal loan are often far more expensive than the home loan option, as banks typically charge exorbitant interest rates on personal loans.
Even someone with an especially good credit score could be charged interest of up to 28% a year on a personal loan, repaid over 72 months. When you compare that with a home loan at the prime rate of 10.75%, it’s clear how much extra you’re paying the bank.
Adding value to your home
Property experts argue that installing a full solar system is a justifiable expense, as it ultimately adds value to your home.
As Seeff Property Group chair Samuel Seeff tells the FM: “Alternative energy solutions are fast becoming a necessity rather than a luxury.’’
Seeff says backup power solutions improve the ability to market and sell a home, especially for houses valued above R1.8m. Most new property developments already offer buyers battery and inverter backup systems, solar geysers, gas stoves and water tanks and these will increasingly become standard features for homes, by his reckoning.
Of course, it all depends on what you need. A family with children at school might need an uninterrupted power supply more than a single person would. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach,’’ says Seeff.
Mallinson says the most cost-effective system, over the longer term, is solar power. For the average homeowner, a solar system with larger batteries enough to get you through up to four days of overcast weather is best.
“You start living with the rhythm of the sunshine: on sunny days you do your washing, on cloudy days you say ‘maybe let’s go out for a meal’. So a lot of people with solar and batteries are now monitoring their usage in a way that makes them far more energy-savvy,” he says.
The next question is: are solar systems scalable? In other words, can you start small and add on batteries, or must you slap down a chunk of cash to install a large system to begin with?
Mallinson says the first question to ask is: are you doing this because you’re sick of load-shedding, or because you want to save money?
“If you’re sick and tired of load-shedding and money is not an object, the first thing you do is buy yourself some backup batteries and inverters that recharge when you’ve got electricity and run when you don’t.”
In this case, two large batteries and an inverter will be enough to insulate you from load-shedding. But if you want to really save money, you’ve got to go solar.
“The smallest you go is at least six panels. But you would have to pay installation [fees] which would be the same as if you installed 12 panels,” he says. “Now that they are going to offer tax incentives where hopefully you will be able to write off the cost against your income I would say start looking at how big your roof is and how much you could sell back to your municipality.”
That’s all very well if you have cash to burn. But what about most South Africans, who don’t?
This is a subject on which Mallinson spends much time the “energy poverty line” that separates those people who have to choose between boiling a kettle and eating, and those who don’t.
“That, to me, is the biggest challenge in South Africa,” he says. The fact is, the more electricity someone can use, the
greater the ability it has to change someone’s life, he adds.
“You probably need about 350kWh to lift a family out of energy poverty. Energy is the tool to craft a living, whether it’s boiling eggs to sell at a taxi rank, or getting a sewing machine, or baking cakes. When you go above that electricity poverty level, the value of the electricity to that household is worth five times as much.”
From here, Mallinson segues from the practical to the philosophical, when it comes to energy policy.
In particular, he believes South Africa ought to provide uncapped electricity for 10-million South African households, at no more than R1 per kilowatt hour. “The way you do that is [by] building the cheapest replacement system for the country — which is wind and solar, rather than nuclear or power ships,” he says.
For this, you’d need surplus solar and wind energy, along with shorter duration batteries. “Those surpluses could be used to allow people to have low-cost uncapped electricity from 8am to 4pm, for 300 days a year. You’re encouraging people to use more electricity but to use it in being entrepreneurial,” says Mallinson.
Ultimately, he says, this is a path that leads to an energy-secure South Africa by 2035, where the country produces two or three times as much electricity as it does now, but at half the cost.
No white knight imminent
It’s hard to imagine such a scenario right now, when the country is taking turns using the meagre electricity being produced. This is especially so, as it’s clear none of the politicians has a handle on it.
Last Friday, at a briefing on the government’s energy plan, Eskom acting head of generation Thomas Conradie put the total unplanned unavailability at 17,000MW (out of the utility’s 58,000MW capacity).
That would have meant stage 3 and 4 load-shedding in the next few days. No surprises then, that just a day later, Eskom said that, due to “further unplanned breakdowns”, load-shedding had spiralled to stage 6. And on Monday it announced indefinite stage 6 cuts.
The situation should never have been like this. But, for this, you can at least partly blame Eskom’s trade unions, which fiercely rejected the utility’s plans in 2019 to “unbundle” into the transmission, generation and distribution arms. This would, theoretically, allow it to function more efficiently and to buy power from independent power producers.
But the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA argued, largely in outdated statist clichés, that this was an attempt to “privatise” Eskom, and that it should be rejected.
The ANC, eager to appease its tripartite alliance partners in the unions, clearly bought into this, because the government hasn’t even bothered to appoint a board for the transmission company yet.
Rudi Dicks, project manager in the presidency, now says the government is in the process of getting a licence for Eskom’s new transmission company, which would open the way for private firms to sell power to the grid.
“This will enable us to move from a single-seller model where Eskom was the only generator,” Dicks says.
The incentives for households and businesses to go “off grid”, as announced this week, would at least suggest there is some movement in the right direction, even if energy policy has been planted in molasses for years.
But given the broken promises from politicians about ending load-shedding including from Ramaphosa South Africans are beginning to realise that if they want anything done, they’ll need to help themselves.