Ramokgopa introduces independent transmission programme

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has outlined a plan to enhance South Africa's electricity transmission infrastructure, with a focus on Gauteng, the North West and the Northern Cape.  

The ministry wants to build more than 1,000km of transmission lines with funding from the private sector. To facilitate this, it is creating a framework that enables private sector participation. 

“We're looking to ensure there's about 400kV of transmission power lines with transformer infrastructure. What we are announcing today [Tuesday] is 1,164km of new transmission lines.”

Ramokgopa said the reforms President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken about are now being turned into action.

The National Development Plan suggests that for South Africa to achieve its targets, the country's economy needs to grow by 5% year-on-year. However, he acknowledged the country is far from reaching the target of 5.5%, which highlights the challenges.

“The economy is not growing at the right scale and part of the problem is constraints on the electricity side. There's a need for us to ensure we can accelerate and support transmission infrastructure development.

“The transmission development plan says we need 14,000km of new lines to unlock the capacity, especially in the Cape provinces — the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and Western Cape — that's where we have the most efficient and reliable renewable energy assets in solar and wind.

“We have exhausted the transmission [lines] that allows us to evacuate the electrons so the economy can benefit from those assets. For as long as we don't do this, capacity expansion will not be able to realise that ambition.”

Ramokgopa said transmission is a “natural monopoly” and will remain under control of the state. The National Transmission Company of SA (NTCSA), led by the board and interim CEO, is at the forefront of this effort. However, he noted South Africa's renewable energy assets are not being fully used due to constraints in the transmission infrastructure.

“So the Eskom balance sheet, the sovereign balance sheet, is not sufficient to carry the sort of investments required in this space. As designed by the NTCSA, [we] will need to modernise and expand transmission by about 14,000km. To do this we need about R440bn, so the state is not in a position to provide that sort of support.”

The selection of corridors in the Northern Cape, North West and Gauteng aligns with the plan mapped out and is consistent with the Integrated Resource Plan. The total package includes about 2,630MVA of transformers and the new generation capacity to be unlocked through this intervention is 3,222MW.

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