Load-shedding can be stopped in two years — why government’s plan to fix Eskom is bad
South Africa could stop load-shedding in a shorter time than forecasted in the government’s latest plan to address the country’s energy crisis by relying more on rooftop solar adoption.
That is according to energy expert and EE Business Intelligence managing director Chris Yelland.
In a recent interview with MyBroadband, Yelland slammed the draft Integrated Resource Plan 2023 (IRP 2023) published for public comment by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in early January 2024.
The IRP 2023 proposes several pathways towards fixing South Africa’s energy shortage, using a combination of various energy sources, including:
- 6,000MW of gas — 3,000MW from Eskom, and 3,000MW from independent producers
- 1,500MW of photovoltaic solar
- 3,000MW of wind
- 2,000MW of battery storage, to be constructed by 2027
Even if South Africa’s electricity capacity were to be expanded according to the plan over the next few years, government forecasts load-shedding will continue until 2027.
Yelland believes that the power cuts could be ended in the next two years, but government’s plans were inadequate to achieving this.
He highlighted three particular issues with of the IRP 2023.
Meaningful improvements in EAF not possible
Firstly, Yelland does not believe Eskom will be able to improve the energy availability factor (EAF) of its existing fleet.
“They say we’re gonna improve Eskom’s EAF,” said Yelland. “You know, we’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. If it was so easy, do it.”
Yelland pointed out that the EAF was a measure of 80 different generators, and meaningfully increasing it would require an unrealistic amount of planned maintenance.
“I don’t see that you can just flick a switch and say, ‘Let’s increase the energy availability factor from 55% at the moment to 70%”, he said.
“If you want to improve the average EAF, you’ve got to work on all 80 generators.”
“You can’t do that in a short time, and you can’t do it simultaneously — you’d have to shut down the whole of South Africa.”
Reviving old coal power plants comes with a great cost
The second part of the plan that Yelland was sceptical of is extending the lifespans of some old coal power stations due to decommissioning.
“The plants are old; they need replacing,” Yelland said. “They’re performing poorly; they’ve been neglected, been abused.”
“They are shutting themselves down, they are breaking down themselves.”
In addition to the challenges Eskom would face in draining the last bit of life out of these plants, continuing to run them would have additional financial repercussions for the country.
“We will be punished by the international community through cross-border adjustment tariffs for not meeting our carbon dioxide emission reduction targets,” Yelland said.
Gas power infrastructure will take too long to build
Lastly, Yelland criticised the plan to acquire significant gas power capacity.
Although he said it was relatively easy and fast to build gas-to-power plants like open-cycle or closed-cycle gas-turbine stations, the problem was supplying the gas to these stations.
“That is what takes a long time — the gas supply, the gas infrastructure, the import terminals, the pipelines to get the gas from the harbour to the power station, upgrading the transmission grid,” Yelland explained.
“These are big infrastructure projects.”
Yelland said that he got the impression Eskom itself was doing everything within its power to curb load-shedding, but its hands were effectively tied behind its back when it came to new generation, which it desperately needs.
“New generation is not gonna come from Eskom because the Treasury has said no more new generation capacity from Eskom as a condition of their bailout,” Yelland said.
“The solutions are gonna come from the private sector.”
Yelland said although the introduction of the electricity market of trading and wheeling in South Africa was happening, it should be faster.
“I would like to see a rapid liberalisation of the energy sector,” he said.
“I think the role of rooftop solar PV and battery energy storage is grossly underestimated.”
The draft IRP envisions that about 900MW of rooftop solar will be added in South Africa every year between 2024 and 2030.
“It could be three or four times that amount if we really pushed it,” Yelland said.
“Many other countries at the same level or even a lower level of development in South Africa are doing much more than 900MW a year in rooftop solar in the domestic, commercial, and agricultural sectors.
“We could deploy at least 2,000MW a year,” Yelland said. “In fact, it is already much higher than 900MW a year.”
Yelland’s assertion is supported by the record-breaking solar panel imports in 2023.
According to Gaylor Montmasson-Clair from Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies, the capacity of solar panels imported to South Africa in just the first half of 2023 was roughly 2,200MW.