South Africa\u2019s grid is designed to carry electricity from large, central power stations in the country\u2019s northeast to other parts.<\/p>\n
Renewable energy generation is decentralised, with generation facilities located almost anywhere.<\/p>\n
The areas, such as the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Northern Cape, which have rich renewable resources, do not have the grid capacity to distribute electricity to the rest of the country.<\/p>\n
The grid in these areas can only carry limited load, which is insufficient for large-scale projects.<\/p>\n
Chief engineer at Stellenbosch University\u2019s Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies, Monique Le Roux,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year that this will become a problem in other provinces if the rapid growth continues and Eskom does not upgrade the grid.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be very interesting to see how Eskom navigates this problem and keeps the grid stable,\u201d Le Roux said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf too many people install solar generation, then the transmission lines will be overloaded and have to run at peak capacity, which causes damage to the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n Le Roux warned Eskom might even have to step in and \u201ctell customers to shut down their solar generation during particular times to prevent their lines from failing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis may get to a situation where the transmission grid just cannot handle the amount of energy being generated, and people would have to shut down these systems or disconnect them from the grid.\u201d<\/p>\n Source:<\/strong> Eskom Generation Connection Capacity Assessment of the 2025 Transmission Network<\/p><\/div>\n The other solution is for Eskom to upgrade the country\u2019s grid rapidly. However, this will cost hundreds of billions of rands and take years to complete.<\/p>\n Eskom has a transmission development plan to tackle this problem, requiring hundreds of billions of rands to build infrastructure nationwide.<\/p>\n The utility aims to build 14,000 km of transmission lines over the next decade, costing an estimated R372 billion.<\/p>\n However, this amount has increased substantially as the private sector has begun rolling out large-scale renewable energy projects in areas with little to no grid capacity.<\/p>\n The utility has said it will need an additional R100 billion in the 2025 financial year to execute its transmission development plan. This amount will increase annually to R170 billion in 2029.<\/p>\n Of particular concern is that the provinces with the best resources are the Cape provinces, while those with the best infrastructure are in the country\u2019s northeast.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are going to see over the next 20 years is that our grid is going to flip 180\u00b0, with the bulk of the generation capacity in the Cape provinces,\u201d Swilling said.<\/p>\n To complete this flip, South Africa must build 2,300 km of transmission lines annually. Currently, the country only produces 400 km of lines a year.<\/p>\n The maximum length of transmission lines built annually was 1,800 km in the 1990s.<\/p>\n This article was first published by Daily Investor<\/a><\/strong> and is reproduced with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n Eskom’s grid is struggling to handle the surge of renewable projects due to limitations in capacity, requiring upgrades or potential restrictions on private generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341119,"featured_media":520593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80335],"tags":[181,35],"class_list":["post-520587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-eskom","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520601,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520587\/revisions\/520601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Eskom-Generation-Connection-Capacity-Assessment-of-the-2025-Transmission-Network.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
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\nNow read:\u00a0Eskom announces first load-shedding of 2024 \u2014 with over 24,600MW capacity offline<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"