{"id":651387,"date":"2026-06-03T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=651387"},"modified":"2026-06-03T16:24:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:24:34","slug":"andre-ruyter-explains-how-australia-can-fix-south-africas-high-electricity-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/651387-andre-ruyter-explains-how-australia-can-fix-south-africas-high-electricity-prices.html","title":{"rendered":"Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter explains how Australia can fix South Africa’s high electricity prices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Eskom chief executive officer Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter believes rolling out extensive battery energy storage systems (BESS) alongside renewable power is the key to cutting electricity tariffs in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is already substantially cheaper to produce electricity from solar and wind power, the two most popular forms of renewable energy generation, than from older, fossil fuel-based technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, solar and wind are not dispatchable, meaning they cannot provide reliable power on demand like coal, gas, and nuclear power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both generation types can exhibit highly fluctuating outputs, and solar power’s production profile is not aligned with the typical energy demand profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its peak production is in the middle of the day, when demand is generally low. Electricity demand is typically highest in the early evenings and mornings, when solar production is low or nonexistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BESS allows excess electricity generated by any power source to be stored \u2014 including renewables \u2014 to be dispatched as required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most popular type of chemistry for these systems is lithium-ion, which has a high cycle life with deep cycling capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lithium-ion batteries were previously too expensive to compete with fossil fuel-based generation on price. However, the price of lithium has more than halved in the last five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), renewable-led systems with storage are now cheaper on a whole-of-system level than new coal power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSIRO’s GenCost report found that indicative levelised generation costs for new solar and onshore wind builds were substantially lower than those for new nuclear and fossil fuel-based generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The report confirms that building a new coal-fired power station would deliver electricity for at least double the price of solar and wind,” CSIRO said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is once again confirmation that the lowest-cost electricity system for Australia is built on renewable energy backed by storage and firming.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New South Wales and southeast Queensland, excess solar power capacity has enabled the government to offer 3 hours of free power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The catch is that electricity prices outside that window are higher than standard tariffs. However, many households can mitigate the higher rates with their own batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below compares the levelised generation costs of renewables, fossil fuel generation, and nuclear power in Australia in 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Energy source<\/th>Levelised cost per MWh<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Solar PV<\/td>AU$52\u2013$88<\/td><\/tr>
Onshore wind <\/td>AU$78\u2013$129<\/td><\/tr>
Gas<\/td>AU$135\u2013$203<\/td><\/tr>
Black coal<\/td>AU$121\u2013$195<\/td><\/tr>
Black coal with CCS<\/td>AU$224\u2013$354<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

De Ruyter wants South Africa to follow Australia’s example<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A large BESS in Western Australia. The country has used existing transmission infrastructure at coal plants to quickly add BESS capacity to the grid. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

De Ruyter has been working as an energy consultant in South Africa, returning from lecturing at Yale University in the US in 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent LinkedIn post, he explained that South Africa has very similar energy resources to Australia, including coal, solar, and wind power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He argued that Australia had shown that lowering electricity tariffs while reducing carbon emissions was possible if appropriate policies and market conditions were put in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He highlighted that the adoption of solar and battery storage reduced Australia’s wholesale electricity prices by an average of 44% in the last quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To reduce and even reverse the relentless upward trend of electricity tariffs, pivoting to renewables at scale is the answer, rather than doubling down on trying to extend the life of coal,” De Ruyter said<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Ruyter said that mature energy technologies had already achieved maximum cost-effectiveness, meaning that electricity from sources like coal and nuclear was unlikely to become cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the levelised cost of electricity from renewables with battery storage continued to open new opportunities for cheap, carbon-free, dispatchable electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In response to a 45% drop in the cost of battery storage from 2024 to 2025, installations in Australia are now approaching 250 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per year,” De Ruyter said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put this into perspective, one can compare it with Eskom’s typical hourly energy demand. In the first 22 weeks of the year, Eskom recorded 73,221GWh of demand, with an hourly average of about 20.2GW. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The batteries Australia is rolling out annually would be able to support Eskom’s entire demand for 10 hours, assuming an 80% depth-of-discharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no definitive source of BESS capacity in South Africa. A 2024 report by GreenCape estimated that smaller behind-the-meter installations had a combined 1.2GWh of storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That capacity has likely expanded substantially, with record private power adoption in 2025. It also excludes larger installations registered with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nersa does not track the amount of energy storage installed with these systems, only their peak outputs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank and South African Energy Storage Association have estimated that utility-scale capacity will only reach 9.7GWh by 2030. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Eskom CEO Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter believes that Australia offers a blueprint for policy and market conditions that could reduce South Africa’s electricity tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":611404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[101448,2798,3664,73260,105666,28392,59903,79528,81416],"class_list":["post-651387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-andre-de-ruyter-2","tag-australia","tag-batteries","tag-battery-energy-storage-systems-bess","tag-commonwealth-scientific-and-industrial-research-organisation-csiro","tag-electricity-prices","tag-electricity-tariffs","tag-lithium-ion-batteries","tag-renewable-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651387"}],"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\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651387"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651846,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651387\/revisions\/651846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}