Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says the restructuring under way at South Africa’s troubled State-owned electricity producer will result in a new-look entity that “will no longer be the old Eskom as we know it” by the end of March next year. Delivering his Budget Vote to lawmakers, Gordhan said the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTC) would be fully operationalised by November and that the identities of its independent board members would be announced “shortly”.
Power utility Eskom has announced that it will implement Stage 5 loadshedding in the evenings until further notice. Stage 5 loadshedding will be implemented from 16:00 until 05:00 and Stage 4 loadshedding from 05:00 to 16:00 every day.
Telecommunications giant MTN South Africa (SA) has issued two requests for information (RFI’s) for zero carbon renewable wheeling and on-site renewable solutions for various data centres and base transceiver station (BTS) sites across South Africa as the operator works to unlock off-grid, clean and reliable energy alternatives. This as MTN SA aims to gain an edge through renewable energy solutions across its footprint and meet its 2040 Net Zero targets.
Mobile telecoms company Vodacom has approach Eskom with a ‘virtual wheeling platform’ concept that the communications group believes could assist it and other companies with distributed electricity demand profiles to meet their decarbonisation goals, while also contributing to lowering the risk of loadshedding. The proposed solution, an outline of which was presented by CEO Shameel Joosub during the 2023 edition of the South African Investment Conference in April, does not involve any specific new investments by either Eskom, Vodacom or potential participants.
It is critical that government consolidates around the National Electricity Crisis Committee (Necom) plan and delivers on the implementation timelines as they stand now. “Given that there is 3 GW less generation available than during the past winter, it seems certain that South Africa is heading for Stage 8 loadshedding this winter. Business is an eager partner of the plan, ready to work where appropriate to ensure the goals are met, and a sense of progress is the one comfort we should have during the dark days ahead,” says business lobby organisation Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso.
Amid rising public anxiety over the prospect of a blackout, a former senior Eskom executive has added his voice to those highlighting the low probability of such an eventuality. However, he also argues that, given current fears over a grid collapse, the State-owned utility’s well-developed contingency plans should be complemented by a clear country plan for navigating such a scenario. Babcock Ntuthuko Engineering CEO Thava Govender, who spent 29 years at Eskom where he acted as group executive for both generation and transmission, describes as a “myth” arguments that higher stages of loadshedding increase the prospect of a blackout.
Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy reports that the department’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) section is currently processing applications for renewable-energy projects with a combined capacity of 9 789 MW. Delivering her Budget Vote on May 19, the Minister said that there were application for 2 899 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity and a further 6 890 MW of wind capacity and added that many of the applications were coupled with battery energy storage systems and associated transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Karpowership, the Turkish company seeking to supply electricity to South Africa, secured government permission to moor its ship-mounted power plants at three of the country’s harbours. A dispute with the port operator may delay or thwart one of the projects. A so-called Section 79 notice granting the consent was issued by the Department of Transport in February, though it wasn’t initially publicly disclosed. The approval surmounted one hurdle the company needs to clear to install its gas-fired plants, after winning three-fifths of a tender for the supply of emergency power in 2021. Transnet National Ports Authority wants to use one of the mooring sites — a location known as A100 at the southern Port of Ngqura — for a liquid bulk terminal it’s relocating from the nearby city of Gqeberha.
It was “inevitable” that South Africa would have to use powerships to help deal with the country’s power supply crisis, Electricity Minister (in the Presidency) Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told delegates in his closing keynote address at the Enlit Africa conference in Cape Town in Thursday afternoon. Loadshedding – scheduled rotating power cuts imposed by State-owned national electricity utility Eskom – was, he said, “the single most important challenge facing us”. Powerships are basically power stations mounted on the hulls of ships, which can be sailed around the world to where they are needed, securely moored, linked to the local grid, generate power and feed it into that grid. He stressed that he was not referring to a specific company that operated such vessels but to the option that powerships provided.
Refrigeration services provider Energy Partners (EP) Refrigeration GM Dawie Kriel stresses that constraints in the local market offer the company opportunities to provide innovative refrigeration and cooling solutions to help local companies mitigate loadshedding and meet economic challenges. One of the solutions the company provides is cooling as a service (CaaS).
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