Load Shedding on South Africa’s Power Grid: A Lesson in How to Fail at Grid Management

 

     South Africa just declared its energy crisis to be a national disaster. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a “state of disaster” due to power shortages that are damaging the economy and the society itself. The causes of the crisis, which has been brewing for many years, includes delays in building new power plants, typically coal-fired plants burning South African coal, corruption in coal-supply contracts, and sabotage and over-regulation of renewable energy projects. Ramaphosa noted that farmers, small businesses, water infrastructure, and transport were all being negatively affected. The state power utility Eskom is forcing necessary rolling outages, the worst and longest on record. The power cuts are expected to cut economic growth by 2% this year, keeping annual growth at just 0.3%. By declaring a national disaster, the government can implement emergency procurement procedures with less bureaucracy and oversight, although many doubt it will have much of an effect.

     South Africa’s power energy crisis is simply lack of capacity to meet demand. Coal powers 84.4% of the grid. With 90% of power coming from coal and nuclear there is certainly more than sufficient firm baseload compared to intermittent sources like wind and solar which make up a little more than 5% of the mix. A lack of grid investment and maintenance is another issue that has led to the crisis.

 

    

South African Power Generation by Source and Percentage for 2021. Data Source: Statista.

    

     Reporter Mpho Lakaje from Soweto in Johannesburg notes that food producers have been losing their product due to lack of refrigeration and even mortuary freezers are failing. He also notes that Eskom has to schedule blackouts for up to 12 hours per day. Lungile Mashele noted that it was the 16^th year of load shedding with no end in sight. She also said that the then CEO of Eskom alerted the government back in 1997 that if new capacity is not added then load shedding would begin around 2007, which is what happened. She said the problem needs to be tackled by capable people: engineers, procurement specialists, lawyers, and contractors that are held accountable. It is also likely that the crisis will reflect poorly on the current government in next year’s elections if not enough is done by then to address the problem.

     As of late 2019 the plan for future energy in South Africa was to add coal, hydro, wind, and natural gas and by 2030 replace much of the coal with wind and hydro. However, adding any coal capacity will be difficult with foreign banks declining to support coal projects, even where they are the cheapest source of power. Coal was expected to still make up about 60% of grid power in 2030 but it remains to be seen whether even those modest decarbonization plans will be feasible. Right now, the need is simply for more juice.  

 

References

 

South Africa invokes disaster law to tackle energy crisis. Wendell Roelf and Carien du Plessis. Reuters. February 9, 2023. South Africa invokes disaster law to tackle energy crisis | Reuters.com

 

South Africa’s power grid is collapsing and outages are disrupting the economy. NPR. Moring Edition. February 7, 2023. South Africa's power grid is collapsing and outages are disrupting the economy : NPR

 

South African power generation plan keeps coal in the mix. Alexander Winning. Reuters. October 18, 2019. South African power generation plan keeps coal in the mix | Reuters

 

Distribution of electricity generation in South Africa in 2021, by source. Statista. April 27, 2022. South Africa: power production share by source 2021 | Statista