National Planning Commission releases plan to end load-shedding in two years

Jan

Who's the Boss?
Staff member
Joined
May 24, 2010
Messages
13,805
Reaction score
11,651
Location
The Rabbit Hole
South Africa's plan to end load-shedding in two years — declare energy emergency now

The South African government's National Planning Commission (NPC) has proposed that the country declare an "energy emergency" to enable the swift construction of 10,000MW of generating capacity and 5,000MW of energy storage to end load-shedding within two years.

Established in May 2010, the NPC is an agency tasked with conducting strategic planning for the country, with its head reporting directly to the president.
 
Didn't the ANC government promise to build 1 million houses in 10 years or something like that? How did that one go?
Now we're expected to believe this is going to happen in 2 years?
 
Ending load-shedding needs to become a unifying national goal for the whole country and all stakeholders. Everyone should do their part to achieve this overriding single goal,” the commission said.

This part is fsck off funny.

The only part of the nation that isn't unified towards ending load shedding is the ANC and the Unions.
 
Not possible, even for private.
The solution is independent power producers but then we end up with another quagmire a few years down the line with non-payers.
 
Fast forward 10 years. The project is 8 years late, several hundred billion over budget and it all keeps breaking. Eskom has just added a 30th stage to the schedule. Now they come and take your eyes away.
 
Last edited:
comrades our glorious leaders and their associated idiots and imbeciles
have come up with plan number 1000.1.5.3.2 ver 1.2.44 for the ANC to retain power

all hail the new plans the ANC comes up with every time Gwede takes a dump....

pathetic, but to be expected when you CANT lose an election,
 
Everybody doing their bit, like accepting a CPI+ wage settlement ...
 
One word :Medupi
Source: https://mg.co.za/article/2020-04-29-the-story-of-sas-biggest-power plant-and-its-little-town/

Corruption

In 2005, the ANC’s investment arm, Chancellor House, bought a 25% stake in Hitachi Africa. Eskom then awarded Hitachi a contract to build boilers at Medupi: the ANC made a financial investment in a company that a state-owned company (Eskom) subsequently did about R105-billion worth of business with. From 2008 to 2012, Hitachi Africa paid Chancellor House $10.5-million: a 5 000% return on its initial investment of just under $200 000.

A subcontractor to Hitachi Africa supplied and installed an ash handling plant that subsequently failed, causing machine grinding fly ash to spread across the plant. About nine thousand of Hitachi’s welds on the boilers were faulty. According to Eskom, the cost of Hitachi’s design flaws is about $4.9-billion.

Widespread looting of the state defined the administration of then-president Jacob Zuma and Eskom was right in the middle of it. Media reports in April 2019 indicate that South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit is examining cases of theft, totalling $9.7-billion, with regard to the construction of the Medupi and Kusile power stations.

Because of design flaws and construction delays, Medupi is performing nowhere near its theoretical capacity and load-shedding has become all too common. Each day of load-shedding costs the economy an estimated $140-million.

Medupi bleeds money. So much so that Eskom’s debt is now so large that no one has a real idea of how it will ever be paid back: its debt has increased by about $2.8-billion over the past decade while electricity tariffs increased 488% from 2006 to 2017. And, as Eskom is owned by the state, that debt is ultimately the state’s debt.

Eskom’s credit rating went to junk in 2016.

In 2017, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s rated South Africa’s credit as junk. Moody’s followed earlier this year. Taxes have increased in South Africa yet tax revenue is down. The economy is now in a technical recession. Debt rolls over. Austerity beckons.

In his state of the nation address in June last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a $16-billion bailout for Eskom. The last rating agency to keep the country at an investment grading, Moody’s, junked South Africa on March 27 this year.

One of the immediate casualties of Eskom and the state’s deepening debt trap is the planned, desired, wished for expansion of coal mining and use in and around Lephalale. Despite its name, the Waterberg simply does not have the water for all the planned mines and power stations. The only way to provide the water is to build a $970-million water transfer scheme that includes a 100km pipeline. The project most likely to happen at this stage is Exxaro’s Thabametsi mine and the attached 600MW coal-fired power station: civil society activists are challenging the environmental authorisation for the power station in court.

So the town patiently waits. A few in terror of what could come, of ash dumps covering fields and sulphur flavouring the wind, but most in hope, albeit fading hope. Hope that another big power station will be built, and more mines dug. If the water comes, then so will the machines, union jobs, migrants, and contractors to fleece through overpriced rentals. The two shopping districts will reverse their entropic decline. Money will be made. The view that coal is development is, perhaps, the only common thread in this divided town.
 
Friendly reminder, we have been here before: https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2021/03/17/eskom-medupi-kusile-yelland
In 2007 when the projects were commissioned, blackouts were crippling mines, at the height of a commodities boom. The plants were meant to be completed by 2015 at a projected total cost of R163.2bn. Now Kusile’s estimated completion date has been pushed back to 2023 and as things stand, the plants might never be fully operational.
Fast forward to 2022...
to enable the swift construction of 10,000MW of generating capacity and 5,000MW of energy storage to end load-shedding within two years.
The timeline and proposed generating capacity in 2 years is nothing short of bonkers considering our track record.
 
So wait, as part of this plan, I must put solar on my roof that feeds back into the grid and then I am going to get shafted for that by the NERSA idea of raising rates for grid tied solar? yeah nah they can keep that thanks.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter