2023 energy challenge in SA — a review and way forward

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For South Africa, like in many countries on the continent, ignoring early warning signs of inadequate power generation and distribution is akin to walking into darkness with the eyes open. It was disaster waiting to happen, and happen, it did. The nation, in 2023, is still neck deep in a self-inflicted pain.

Load shedding, the unpleasant deal

There has been a chain of black out in the land which may have been arguably hit with the Level 8 load shedding in which 8,000 megawatts of electricity is taken off in order to prevent a collapse of the national grid. Although the official posture of the sole power provider, Eskom South Africa, is put at Level 6 (in which 6,000MW is cut off the grid). Energy analysts say that 12 hours or more of black out experienced in parts of the country including Johannesburg is consistent with all the characteristics of a Level 8. Consumers are also put in darkness for several hours per day under the crushing blow of this technical application.

Under various levels of load shedding, Eskom, the power operator of the nation, is already taking the measures due to shortage of generating capacity and emergency reserves. It has not been an enviable history in a nation with a great potential to generate, distribute and sell electricity to consumers both locally and beyond the shores of the land.

The first time of load shedding was in the closing weeks of 2007, and while consumers thought it was going to be a very short lived issue, it spilled almost to the middle of 2008, ending in May. Several reason have been given for the energy problems, from shortage of coal supply to coal-fired plants, manpower deficiency to increasing demand of power from different parts of the country.

A shorter and a second spell were between November 2014 and February 2015. It was a November of distressing electric power metrics; a Majuba power plant that supplies 10 per cent of the nation’s demand faced a collapse of one of its coal storage silos, and another cracked silo three weeks later. A major level 3 load shedding became imminent as two more plants were shut down due to shortages in diesel supply. Two other plants experienced shortfall in the water reserve to the hydro plants.

Retrogressively, a third period was recorded in February 2019 till March of the same year. It entered the 4th level drop in power supply with 4,000MW. Even in March of the same year, the cuts continued; so did the discomfort and stress of consumers.

Nationwide blackouts marked the period starting December 2019 as a Level 6 shedding was executed.

With a capacity to give the nation about 44,000MW, only 13,000MW was available. This created a dire situation that continued till March 2020. In the midst of this, the Koeberg Nuclear Power station ran into hitch: its sea water cooling pump had a problem in the month and led to more shedding.

The present crisis dovetailed into 2023 from the previous year, when the fiasco in the sector became like wildfire. The consumer did not really know what to expect almost on a daily basis. In 2020 when the Covid-19 Pandemic kept everywhere at a standstill, there was respite of some sort in the energy demand from Eskom. There were little or no economic activities; therefore load shedding was not much an issue. However, immediately the pandemic gave way, two regimes of shedding were announced between March and June 2021 due to technical hitches in several plants.

In June 2021, President Ramaphosa was pressured to set things in motion to amend the Electricity Regulation Act so that private producers would be given licenses to easily add power to the national grid.

But even after that, things cascaded rather very badly with more blackouts and labor unrest. Strike actions and sundry issues continued to mount to the point that in September 2022, the nation’s energy grid collapsed severely resulting in half of the generating capacity being lost.

By the end of 2022, consumers nationwide had cupped more than 200 days of blackout.

Daring the tiger by the tail

The year 2023 was an extension of the storm of the previous one. Eskom’s CEO, Andre de Ruyter, wanted to stir the hornets’ nest in a bold submission to the Parliament to what extent corruption, graft and its bed fellows had gone to paralyze the energy sector. He did not go the distance as forces from within and without the corporation sent him away in February.

In March, the President appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the first Minister of Electricity in the midst of dust raised by de Ruyter. By April, level 6 load shedding returned and the rest of the year was neither here nor there, and climaxed by the appointment of Dan Markone, who came into office a few weeks ago.

Embattled Eskom and a corrupt political class

The political class especially the ruling ANC has been in the middle of the crisis since the early times when power generating corporation emphasized the need to build more plants and expand existing ones. This dates back decades ago; it did not consider it priority.

Eskom has had a litany of operating chiefs over the period, all in a bid to fixing the energy giant’s mandate to perform. Managing the utility corporation has been intriguing, and even the more challenging, underhand deals from the political class from the ruling ANC over time.

Since the ruling party after the Apartheid regime was swept aside, the ANC has been under fire for the energy misfortune of the nation.

In the nature of politicians to put up defense with a catalog of excuses, President Cyril Ramaphosa attributed the load shedding a few years ago to sabotage arising from an Eskom employee amid other reasons such as heavy rains and wet coal that cannot fire. However, Jan Oberholzer, CEO at the time, blamed the powers that be for 12 years of neglect, pre Covid-19 pandemic, and lack of maintenance.

Many a CEO is wont to avoid stepping on toes, but not Andre de Ruyter, who had a three-year stormy stint as head. He wrapped up the rot going on in the place as a drain for about $55m monthly. Expectedly, State officials and spokespersons on both sides of the divide would thrash his written submission to the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts, SCOPA. De Ruyter resigned his job, left the country and had his chance to tell his story without fear of being harmed in his 2023 book, ‘ Truth To Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom.’

Only in December 2023, Markone took over as man at the helm of affairs, and he is yet to finish unpacking his briefcase and face the job challenge.

Dropping the blame, facing the game

For long the ruling ANC party has remained strong in warding off criticisms of the failure to face the inability to take the right decisions dating back to before the days of former President Thabo Mbeki. However, Mbeki and his deputies put up a bold face in admitting that energy failures of the country lie squarely on the shoulders of government. The buck stopped on his table.

Government sold the argument that it underestimated the nation’s economic growth, which economic indicators do not match, to a more plausible explanation that it did not heed Eskom’s warnings to actively pursue the building of new plants much earlier.

Pushing the arguments back and forth has not improved the situation much. Not even with some going retrospectively to the dark days of the Apartheid era. It is said that the system at the time forced overwhelming majority of the people to live far away from economic opportunities, but in all these the nation should move forward.

Since politicians are always in the fore front of making policies and drive change and development, a new and positive game plan should be in place. Eskom, SA’s primary producer and supplier of electricity may have become an overbearing state monopoly. It needed to be rejigged, broader privatization pursued and alternative sources brought into the mix.

Although, from the core source of coal, the nation has reached different levels of plan to adopt in definite engaging renewable energy such as wind and solar power. Much as the task to pursue cleaner renewable energy is desirable and in line with international climate change expectations, the newer forms of energy from wind and solar have their drawbacks. The fluctuations of power from these sources may translate to shortages during periods of high national demand. How this pans out in the months and years ahead is to be seen, other things being equal.

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