R112-billion fix for South Africa’s transmission grid disaster

The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) has set aside R112 billion for the Transmission Development Programme (TPD), allowing nearly 30,000MW of utility-scale renewable generation to be online within the next five years.

Speaking at the NTCSA’s official launch on Monday, 7 October 2024, chair Priscillah Mabelane said the company recognises that collaboration with the private sector is critical to ensuring that the 53,000MW required over the next decade will come online.

“Despite being a newly formed entity, the NTCSA has already made substantial progress in implementing its strategy,” said Mabelane.

“We have approved R112 billion for TDP investment in the next five years.”

The TDP requires an R390-billion expansion of the national transmission grid over the next 10 years to allow for independent power producer (IPP) plants and new generation capacity to send the electricity they generate to other parts of the country.

In an NTCSA statement announcing the launch, the entity said it must accelerate the construction of new transmission development infrastructure to execute the TDP at the required scale and pace.

“It is anticipated that in the next five years, there will be 30GW of utility-scale renewables connected to the grid by the end of 2029,” it said.

“A step change will be required to ensure that this new generation can connect to the electricity transmission grid and to get it to the point of demand.”

The NTCSA hopes to have brought 11,000MW of new capacity online by the 2027 financial year.

The NTCSA officially commenced trading on 1 July 2024. At that time, it said it would focus on expanding transmission grid capacity.

In August, it revealed a list of 19 companies with which it had signed agreements for transmission grid expansion projects.

“The NTCSA will own and operate the country’s national transmission system, the world-class System Operator, the grid strengthening function, energy market services and the International Trader,” it said.

“The NTCSA will trade with Eskom Generation and IPPs using the current industry framework.”

Eskom’s 14,000km transmission headache

In July 2023, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa unveiled the country’s plans to expand its transmission network by more than 14,000km and increase transformers sixfold by 2033.

Through Eskom’s TDP, the power utility aims to build 14,000km of 132kV, 275kV, 400kV, and 765kV transmission lines over the coming decade.

“That amounts to a 600% increase in transmission infrastructure over the next ten years,” the minister said.

Eskom got off to a low start regarding the expansion, only completing three of the five projects it had planned in 2023/24 and achieving just 74.4km of the 166km expansion it had planned for the year.

However, to achieve its goal by 2033, the country must plan to expand its transmission network by an average of more than 1,400km a year.

Ramokgopa’s announcement came a few months after Krutham’s (formerly Intellidex) managing director for capital markets, Peter Attard Montalto, revealed that Eskom’s transmission grids in several provinces were full or nearing capacity.

Therefore, even if the government had brought IPP projects planned for provinces like the Northern, Western, and Eastern Cape, it wouldn’t be able to distribute the power to other parts of the country.

Montalto said the transmission grid expansion is critical and that it had never been a priority of the government, despite Eskom and the private sector’s cries.

As a result, the transmission grid in the Northern Cape was at capacity in December 2022, with the Greater Cape region as a whole nearing capacity at the time.

“The Greater Cape area is close to full capacity; in particular, the Northern Cape has run out of capacity, the Eastern Cape has about 1.6GW of capacity, excluding applications (for connection) which are currently being processed, and the Western Cape also has about 1.8 GW excluding applications,” Eskom told MyBroadband.