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Load shedding will be over but for Stage 1 by the end of this year and will be permanently ended by the end of 2025, says Business4SA, a private-sector initiative to assist the government in key areas.
The B4SA initiative, which was first started to help the government fight the Covid-19 pandemic, has work streams to deal with energy, logistics, and crime and corruption prevention. The work streams are chaired by the government and supported by business, which provides millions of rands to provide technical experts and consultants.
The initiative briefed journalists on Thursday on the progress made over the past 18 months.
Business lead on the energy work stream, James Mackay, said the critical path the National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom) has mapped out shows that an average of Stage 1 load shedding will be achieved by the end of 2024.
Re-establishment
By the end of 2025, the “reserve margin” that protects the system against load shedding will be re-established, and load shedding will be ended permanently.
This is due to a combination of stabilised performance by Eskom, access to some additional megawatts through imports and purchases by Eskom, new Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in the government procurement programme coming on stream, and the large boom in renewable energy, which exceeded expectations.
While the government’s own energy plan – the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2023 – only envisages load shedding ending by 2027, Mackay says he is confident that enough private sector capacity will come online in next 12 to 24 months.
Says Mackay: “We saw huge growth in rooftop solar last year of some 2 600MW. It’s coming down a bit, but we expect the growth will continue for some time. What we also see now is significant growth coming through corporate utility-size projects. Our view is that we will probably exceed the numbers in this pathway by 2025. And, at this stage, there are no grid capacity constraints that will impact that.”
Head of the Project Management Unit (PMU) in the Presidency, Rudi Dicks, said that the committee was tracking 22 000MW of pipeline projects.
“We’re tracking approximately 22GW of private generation capacity. These are utility-scale projects that are applying for grid access. That means these are more or less in the final stages.”
Stabilisation
Mackay said that Eskom’s coal plant performance had “stabilised” and was no longer in the downward trend of the past decade. The IRP had been predicated on a declining Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of 50% and falling. The EAF is now in the region of 58% with fewer unplanned outages.
“It is a very positive performance. Some of it is directly related to the good effort, and the plans [Necom put in place]. However, the overall system remains unreliable and we haven’t recovered the reserve margin. So, if there are failures, for example, multiple tube failures, we are likely then to go back into load shedding. So, I think there’s a lot of work still ahead. “
Through Necom, B4SA says it is supporting 250 technical experts in the energy work stream, and 45 and 60 in the logistics and crime-prevention streams. These include engineers, scientists, energy planners, logistics and rail operations professionals, planning and procurement professionals, and security and legal consultants.
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Says Mackay: “The business interventions are focused on the people (who work in these areas). So, we’re not lifting the spanners at power stations, but we’re assisting in terms of root cause analysis, failure analysis, trip analysis, and interventions on how to do things quicker, better, and more efficiently. We are coaching and mentoring leadership at power stations to be able to better manage the complexity. This is really making a difference.”
Diesel savings
Responding to the statement by previous Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, published in News24 yesterday, Mackay said that while Eskom was certainly burning more diesel than during De Ruyter’s tenure, when strict budget constraints were applied, it was burning diesel at a far lower rate than during 2022 and 2023.
“In 2022 Eskom burned about R19 billion of diesel and in 2023, nearly R30 billion. In 2024, over the last seven weeks, we’ve used less diesel (in the year to date) than in ’23 or ’22. It’s not a conspiracy theory. We are having a combination of good work coming together.”
The B4SA initiatives are planned to run until the end of 2025, and will do so regardless of the election, said B4SA convenor Martin Kingston.
“Regardless of what happens on 29 May, we’re solving through to April of next year. I want to emphasise the importance that we all attach to the critical paths that we’ve been sharing with you. You’ll see that they go through to the end of 2025.”
