South Africa’s only opposition-led province plans to facilitate the construction of about 6GW of power generation capacity to counter nationwide electricity shortages and bolster the regional economy.
The Western Cape aims to add as much as 750MW of supply by 2025 and to reach 5,700MW by 2035, premier and DA member Alan Winde said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Cape Town office. That should be sufficient to meet demand as the provincial economy expands.
State-owned utility Eskom, which generates more than 90% of the nation’s electricity, has been forced to implement rotational blackouts since 2008, with outages now at record levels. The government has declared a state of disaster to help it address the crisis, but there is no sign of it abating.
The World Bank is providing an adviser, Karen Breytenbach, who previously led South Africa’s independent power producer office, to help shape the plans
Winde met Eskom’s former CEO André de Ruyter shortly after he tendered his resignation in December to seek advice on how the province should approach energy provision.
“He said you’ve got to become independent as quickly as possible,” Winde recalled.
De Ruyter didn’t provide much detail, but expressed “there’s big trouble ahead and do what you can”, the premier said.
Winde has appointed a team to expedite larger generation projects, and intends on assisting municipalities to boost their power supply with a budget that will be announced in mid-March.
The World Bank is providing an adviser, Karen Breytenbach, who led South Africa’s independent power producer office, to help shape the plans.
One of the challenges for South Africa’s power system is its inadequate transmission grid.
A shortage of connections meant that not one wind project was selected in the national government’s latest award of contracts to private producers to supply additional electricity.
The Western Cape government has yet to determine which transmission options — Eskom infrastructure, municipal grids and micro grids — will work best and in what combination, according to Winde.
The province plans will take into account its growing population, projected to hit 8-million in the next six years, up from 7.2-million.
The ANC has targeted a $250bn (about R4.6-trillion) green hydrogen industry by 2050 as part of long-term plans to reduce the nation’s reliance on coal, create a new export industry and use cleaner technologies. Some plans include reviving a mothballed ArcelorMittal steel plant in Saldanha, along the coast north of Cape Town, to use the fuel.
Sasol has said it would potentially accelerate its own plans to develop and export green hydrogen to meet demand from Europe.
A green hydrogen industry, which is dependent on the development of renewable energy, will have to benefit the local economy, according to Winde.
Eskom estimates the nation requires 53GW of clean energy capacity by 2032 to make up for coal plant closures and reach a secure level of supply.
“You can’t have hydrogen exports to Europe and load-shedding in South Africa,” Winde said. “Citizens will burn everything down.”
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