UPDATED 1 Sept: The EI library in London is temporarily closed to the public, as a precautionary measure in light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation. The Knowledge Service will still be answering email queries via email , or via live chats during working hours (09:15-17:00 GMT). Our e-library is always open for members here: eLibrary , for full-text access to over 200 e-books and millions of articles. Thank you for your patience.
New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Repairing South Africa’s struggling power sector
14/8/2024
8 min read
South Africa has struggled to keep its lights on over the past four years. Corruption, mismanagement, theft and delayed projects have all taken their toll on a creaking electricity grid, while setting back plans for an energy transition towards renewables. But with a new broad-based coalition government elected to power in May 2024, and a newly created stand-alone Energy and Electricity Ministry, there is optimism that power generation issues will be resolved going forward, writes Paul Cochrane.
South Africa’s acute energy woes date back to 2007, when the country’s state-owned electricity supplier Eskom Holdings SCO had to devise a schedule for rotational power cuts, known as load shedding, as a way to distribute demand for electrical power across multiple power sources and prevent a nationwide blackout due to declining capacity.
Under the load shedding schedule, Stage 1 ran three times over a four-day period for two hours at a time, to shed 1,000 MW. Stage 8 was six times-a-day, or 12 hours, with 8,000 MW shed by Eskom. The stages fluctuated over the years, depending on demand, natural disasters, power plants being offline or repaired, and varied according to grid capacity throughout the country. As the situation worsened in 2022 and 2023, the stages increased.
The situation drove the development of an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) in 2010, and a Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP), which aimed to bring online 17.8 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. Pretoria also signed the Paris Agreement treaty on climate change, which prompted the government to set an ambitious target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.