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Not for the first time, ordinary South Africans are stepping up where the government isn’t… From creating apps to alert others about load shedding, to parking their cars and assisting as point guards to keep traffic moving, our collective ability to take care of each other when the chips are down might be the last thing keeping us going.
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We may literally be in the dark but everyone that calls South Africa home deserves to be enlightened.
May 2023 is set for 27 days of rolling blackouts of at least Stage 3, according to Eskom documents, while the power utility’s weekly outlook for the year from 12 September 2022 is just week after week of red.
That outlook, headlined “Likely risk scenario”, means rotational power outages are just about a given. The exceptions marked in amber are the Christmas and New Year weeks, and, curiously, also the week of 11 September 2023, indicating a somewhat lower risk.
This helps explain why, after having considered implementing permanent Stage 2 rolling blackouts, according to Eskom’s briefing on Sunday, the power utility decided to can that. It wouldn’t have made a difference, according to Eskom CEO André de Ruyter.
“We don’t think that if we have, for example, Stage 2 load shedding on a continuous basis that this will buy us significant additional headroom [for maintenance and such]”.
Put differently, the system is so broken that not even permanent Stage 2 rolling blackouts would have an ameliorating impact.
It’s the state of affairs after years and years of delaying required maintenance, and the hard running of ageing coal power stations since 2008 when the political line was “Keeping the lights on”.
All this means no knight in shining armour or pretty optics orchestrated by the Presidency will provide a solution.
Planning cycles to bring online new capacity run over at least 18 to 24 months. Few people, if any, will argue differently. It’s a planning pipeline that requires everyone to do their bit — from Eskom, which falls under the Department of Public Enterprises, to the independent power producers office, which falls under the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, and everyone in between, including the Cabinet.
If delays happen in, say, the approval of independent power producers (IPPs) projects, as happened in the 2014 Bid Window 4 and the 2021 Bid Window 5, then on-grid new power is delayed. Bid Window 5 is expected to deliver 2,600MW in early 2024, while a step towards Bid Window 6 ’s 5,200MW is unfolding.
If further delays, or complications over pricing, arise between the legal and commercial close of projects, the additional power remains on paper, not in the grid.
Another spanner in the wheel, or perhaps bolt in a Koeberg turbine, is when procurement ends up under a cloud — or in court — as happened with the Karpowership emergency power deal of a couple of years ago.
Already about two years behind schedule, those emergency 1,220MW remain stranded. To date, only some 150MW have been added to the grid.
That Eskom on Sunday could announce the urgent procurement of at least 1,000MW was possible because “approval processes were already in progress”, according to the power utility’s emailed reply to a request for comment.
The standard offer programme — simply put, Eskom buys available power at a set rate from existing IPPs — was already at the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). “The other two programmes were approved by Eskom’s board last week,” according to that written response.
Exactly why it took Stage 6 rotational power cuts for this to emerge is unclear — unless it was the scramble to find a PR moment styled as an action step.
Smoothing out governing ANC political contestation and diverging interests in the Cabinet meant a swathe of interministerial committees, task teams and such. But getting everyone to clear diaries, and agree, stalled governance into paralysis, particularly in an ANC elective conference year, and ahead of the country’s election year in 2024.
Add a dash of short-termism — often with an eye on an election, in the ANC or South Africa — and it’s more about the PR moment and the pretty optics.
On Eskom, Deputy President David “DD” Mabuza chairs a political task team, while President Cyril Ramaphosa in December 2018 appointed a sustainability task team. A National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom) came into existence in July.
The absence over the past 15 years of a stable electricity supply increasing in line with South Africa’s needs should have focused everyone’s mind. Particularly in the wake of a large measure of continuity — while then deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was put in charge of the Eskom war room for a while from December 2014.
Then, the government had a five-point plan to address energy shortages within three years.
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“These interventions are premised on ensuring that Eskom creates a space to improve plant reliability, Eskom will participate in building new capacity through projects in gas, coal, regional projects and independent power producers.”
But the war room was closed fairly quickly as it was ineffective because, as Ramaphosa put it during a March 2019 presidential Q&A session in the House, there were “too many entry points to Eskom”. Instead, he asked then-president Jacob Zuma to close the war room and appoint a CEO.
That was Brian Molefe, who came from Transnet, in late 2015. And Eskom’s place at the heart of State Capture and the looting of public money for private enrichment emerged then in media reports, and in a parliamentary inquiry — and more recently, testimony to and findings of the State Capture commission.
The year 2022 has been the worst yet, with 91 days of rotational power cuts already, and the year not done.
The energy availability factor has also plummeted — down to 56.69% now, according to Eskom documents. It stood at 61.79% in 2021. At the same time, the unplanned outage factor is up to 28.98% in 2022, from 24.53% in 2021, signalling an acceleration of unexpected plant breakdowns.
The 2022 budget for diesel, R7.7-billion, is blown as open gas turbines are being kept online to stave off even higher stages of rolling blackouts. On Sunday, De Ruyter said the power utility’s chief financial officer had allocated another R500-million.
It’ll be all eyes on the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in late October to see if the power utility will get further support. In the 2019 Budget, some fleet footwork with numbers meant Eskom got an amortised R250-billion in annual instalments over the following decade.
In South Africa’s strained political economy, more money for Eskom will be unpopular, particularly against the backdrop of tariff increases of some 300% over the past decade, leaving consumers digging deep into their pockets.
On Wednesday, the Cabinet met over the rolling blackouts, Eskom capacity and progress by the National Energy Crisis Committee.
“Cabinet remains committed to resolving the issue of energy security and the country, and welcomes the concerted efforts being made by government and stakeholders to find a permanent solution to end load shedding,” said Cabinet spokesperson Phumla Williams.
But it’s not as if the deteriorating situation was not known. Or that Eskom’s state of breakdown isn’t known. The power utility has been quite transparent — in meetings with MPs, public briefings and on its website.
Wednesday’s Cabinet deliberations came eight weeks after Ramaphosa pledged action in a televised speech to South Africa on 25 July, in the wake of debilitating rotational power cuts then.
“ The crisis that we are facing requires that we should take bold, courageous and decisive action to close the electricity gap,” said the President.
The actions ranged from i mproving Eskom’s power stations’ performance (which has become worse) and the accelerated procurement of further capacity, of which Eskom’s purchasing plans announced on Sunday and Bid Window 6 are examples.
They also included investment in private generation — embedded power licencing red tape has been cut completely on the back of preparatory work by Operation Vulindlela — while businesses and households would be enabled to invest in rooftop solar.
Ramaphosa, on that day, also talked of “fundamentally transforming the electricity sector and positioning it for future sustainability”, without giving details.
On 1 August, ministers whose departments are part of the National Energy Crisis Committee briefed Parliament on the so-called presidential intervention plan.
“ Load shedding is the single biggest constraint on South Africa’s economic growth. Government is taking bold steps both to address the immediate crisis and to make load shedding a thing of the past,” said the official statement . “Further, we are mobilising all of the resources at our disposal and will do whatever it takes to achieve energy security.”
Some eight weeks later, Stage 6 rotational power outages battered South Africa’s political economy. Again. Belying politicians’ talk and PR optics.
Eskom contributes to NatJoints (National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure) that brings together spooks, the SA Police Service and soldiers in a structure that’s not established in law or regulation, and which is not publicly accountable.
NatJoints was drawn into the heart of governance during the Covid-19 two-year lockdown as part of the National Coronavirus Command Council. It has stayed.
While Eskom was “not necessarily briefing NatJoints every week”, according to a written response to a request for comment, it contributed “by providing the required information to assist the [NatJoints] work streams” and to highlight areas of support the power utility needed to solve the crisis.
“Eskom does not see this as reporting, but as an opportunity to unlock bottlenecks/challenges that would otherwise take a lot of time to address through formal processes.”
As various government departments are also part of these work streams, such an approach “enables faster alignment on actions that must be taken in the best interest of the company”.
Aside from the role of soldiers, spooks and cops in the national power utility, more is at play.
Issues include Eskom’s demand for a 32% tariff increase from a regulator it has taken to court, to the manoeuvring over the just transition, or decommissioning of coal power plants in a way that does not negatively affect workers and surrounding communities.
But amid politicians’ verbiage and search for pretty optics, the reality is this: South Africa misses between 4,000MW to 6,000MW. Right now.
And with planning pipelines taking between 18 to 24 months, that means rotational power cuts are set to continue — for at least the next year, or even longer, at a rate that on Eskom’s own modelling, shows no let-up.
No knight in shining armour, strongman politician or pretty words will change that. Calling out ministers, the President and Eskom management might. Doing the hard work and maintaining public scrutiny, will. DM
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There can be no solution to the problems bedevilling our country, it’s economy and of course Eskom. unless and until all the forces, structures, societal groupings and individuals, start to pull together with common cause.
As long as President Ramaphosa pussyfoots around. prevaricates and fails to properly grasp the reality that the forces that, through State Capture, stole vast sums, deliberately hobbled efficiency by placing compliant toadies into positions of extreme power throughout our State Enterprises, the Judiciary, the Police, the Security Services, are hell-bent on avoiding the legal consequences of their actions and accountability for same, then so long will we crab along, going nowhere and be subject to repeats of the July 2021 treasonous insurrection. Extreme white-anting within Eskom and other SOE will continue to bring our country to it’s knees and allow criminal elements to make compliant, gullible political leaders dance like marionettes on the end of strings pulled by these same dark forces.
Only decisive action can save our country and the rotten timbers, malignant forces of destruction, many within the ruling party, need to be cut away and replaced with new, sturdier, competent individuals – and this needs to happen NOW.
The cold hard facts are that Cadre deployment, BBBEE and AA all in the name of transformation has crippled Eskom. These policies have driven looting, corruption and excessive costs on an eye watering scale. Eskom’s current business and operational model is not sustainable any longer. Power stations need to be urgently sold to the private sector and if not then at the very least power stations should be leased to the private sector to operate. This will disrupt and possibly eliminate the ANC looting and patronage networks, see a reduction in operating and maintenance costs as useless employees are removed and empowerment middlemen are cut out and result in a dramatic improvement in operational efficiency. But alas, this is a pipe dream. Silly me!
Your suggestions, while appropriate in the short term, could add to cost in the medium to longer term with no guarantee of improved service. Consider the California situation both currently and in the recent decades?
The California situation is due to pandering to leftwing idiots who are demanding renewables to replace coal. Baseload needs to be run on Coal/Oil/Gas as renewables are currently NOT reliable for baseload generation.
Evan: you are probably referring to dispatchable energy, not baseload. Right now coal diesel and gas can not meet our demand and is certainly not reliably dispatchable despite about 6GW of renewables and around 3GW of pumped storage helping them. The first dispatchable renewable project is kicking off as we speak. Solar plus storage that delivers energy 20h a day every day 365 days a year. That is a MUCH higher energy availability factor than anything in the Eskom arsenal. Cost is 164c/kWh or a fifth of diesel and roughly what Eskom average price is now before it goes to 200c/kWh next year. What we should be doing is adding 10GW 30h capacity pumped storage and 40GW of renewables. Then we can scrap the end of life coal and fix the supposed new coal properly. What industry is doing is saying we’re not going to wait for or rely on these clowns : by June my factory will be 80% off-grid in terms of capacity connection kVA and 100% off-grid with regard energy kWh. My energy costs will drop 60% from its current cost and stay there for 20y.
Afraid so. But pipe dreams are all we have left. We, the citizens, are on our own.
One thing appears for sure (to me), the billions the president owes have not been “earned” because of competence.
No truer words spoken. The same applies to the wealth of all the other cadres who share his pig pen.
The cold hard facts is first a government that gives very little support to Eskom. The second is about 20 000 MW that are idle, but not mothballed and the crowd at Megawatt Park has to explain its failure to fix these. The other cold hard fact to get IPPs whatever form you need a base load of 15 000 MW that de Ruyter and the Megawatt circus are even failing to keep on. Those who blame Mantashe are parading their ignorance in public. Mantashe has been on Eskom structures as NUM representative and he knows the functionality aspect of an energy utility. We served together in NEDLAC when NERSA was introduced and its functions. We need to get rid of energy illiteracy and do what the Nigerians have begun to do, to incorporate the GARP qualification of Energy Risk Professional in our curriculum. It was surprising that people I saw sitting for the ERP during GARP exams were people from the rest of the continent not South Africa! We have Steenhuisen speaking from a position of ignorance with very understanding of the energy industry in particular electricity generation. He plays politics instead of looking at the incompetence of de Ruyter and the board and what he really offers is hogwash. He is a promoter of IPPs and wants to sink ESKOM.
Not a word here about “Who pays” The payers are leaving, non payers are increasing and Eskom is technically bankrupt having to depend on unworkable assets to produce There is probably enough power left available for a smaller Eskom to supply the paying users at more affordable prices. Good bye to the social plan?
By the time this supply problem is solved, two stages of loadshed worth demand will have gone behind-the-meter. Large solar, large battery, management system and diesel backup almost any office or daytime ops business can be 90% off grid for cheaper than what councils charge.
Lets cut to the chase. In an interview with Alec Hogg last week Neal Froneman (one of few businessmen in SA with enough guts to speak the truth) recalled how his team turned a once great but now ailing mining company into a useful business again-he spoke in simple terms-identifying the good, the bad and the ugly. Leverage the good, stop the bad and cut out and dispose of the ugly. This is kind of language operational staff understand and can deal with. Government has to release Eskom of its political agenda so that it can generate power, sell it at a reasonable profit and be able to keep doing so into the future-after all, it was the world leader at what it did before the politicians broke it.
Neal Froneman is one of the few rare breed of CEOs and a person who is not afraid to speak his mind. The problem of people like Neal, is that they are not yes man who can work for SOEs where incompetent politicians and apparatchiks interfere with the running of institutions. Ask Mark Barnes who was doing a wonderful work at the post office what happened. For these reasons, we end up with incompetent CEOs on our SOEs. If you look what is happening at PRASA, you certainly need competent people. But when you have an absent President who reacts to situations when it reaches a crisis level you have a problem. We must ask what is he doing as the CEO of SA Inc. except to appoint this and that committee to deal with issues that are a mandate of ministers or that person to deal with an issue that is also a mandate of a ministry. You then have even no reports of such committees. Government gets involved because it wants to direct diesel tenders that have been running Eskom. Why did the former CEO of MTN Sifiso Dabengwa resign from the board? It is very intriguing that it relates to the diesel tender!
Merten leaves out one other party from whom “bold action” is needed. Us. The people who use electricity. It is clearly no longer a given and each and every one of us needs to take a long hard look at how much energy we are using. And water, they go hand in hand. Could men pee behind a bush instead of flushing the loo? Could women stop ironing clothes? And not use clothes dryers. Could municipalities stop leaving street lights on all day? Could each of us turn off the light when we leave a room? Could we BBQ a little more often? Could we wash the dishes by hand? Could we skip a shower on cold days?
Simple; that alone would probably stop load shedding completely. Add to that a solar geyser and generator and the crisis is long over.
Barrie, those are excellent suggestions. If we could change everyone’s mindset from complaining (with good cause) about loadshedding, to using less electricity (when it’s available) in the many small ways you’ve listed, it could change the current outlook. I can add to that list Boil the kettle once and fill a flask with the rest of the water. PS men also iron clothes, use tumble dryes and hair dryers for that matter. 😀
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