EDITORIAL | If Joburg doesn’t power green soon it will go from economic hub to dud

Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse revealed on Monday that South Africans have installed an estimated 200MW of solar panels on the roofs of their homes. An expert at the Johannesburg Energy Indaba explained that 1MW will power 164 houses. That equates to more than 30,000 households who have lost faith in the government’s ability to provide them with reliable electricity. It is a drop in the ocean in the estimated 17.4-million households in SA, but will — and should — become a growing trend as we venture into the world of independent power projects.

Phalatse, in the Sunday Times at the weekend, warned of a potential energy “emergency”, saying Johannesburg’s more than 6-million residents and thousands of businesses may not realise what a knife-edge the city is on. She was speaking ahead of the indaba on Monday and Tuesday, where she said Johannesburg was hoping to add 500MW of alternative energy resources to power its grid.

Eskom’s latest power cuts, combined with reports of sabotage at several of its sites, leave South Africans with little hope of any improvement soon. This year has already seen about 600 hours of blackouts. Too many undertakings from Eskom bosses and politicians have not materialised. Our response to alternative solutions has been too slow. Leading the pack is Cape Town, which is pushing ahead with contracting private power suppliers to supplement what is available. Tenders for independent power producers to supply the city with 300MW of energy close this week. Johannesburg is kicking off its own process at the energy indaba. 

Johannesburg is still talking about its problems when by now it should have been much more proactive.

But even better news: in North West, the first two 100MW independent power production projects are about to start construction. This after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s landmark announcement in August 2021 exempting projects of up to 100MW from having to apply to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) for a licence, enabling much larger investments into independent power producers.

On Monday, the SOLA group announced that the first two 100MW projects have been formally registered with Nersa. “This is a clear signal to the market that private power is achievable and there are private funders who are excited to finance this market,” its CEO, Dom Wills, said. It is hoping to have construction in North West complete within 14 months, starting in July. In the same announcement, the presidency’s Rudi Dicks was quoted as saying the government and the industry have set up a platform to discuss how to fast-track these projects “to remove many of the constraints. All of this is important to help alleviate the shortage in electricity supply.”

Yet it is all still happening too slowly. Johannesburg is still talking about its problems when by now it should have been much more proactive. Phalatse said R26bn is required to help fix City Power’s infrastructure, while its capital budget is R7.7bn. This includes not only electricity, but infrastructure such as water and roads. “There is no way the city alone can turn around the energy problems in Johannesburg,” she said, as she spoke about the devastating impact of high electricity tariffs and low supply levels. It is a step in the right direction to hold this energy indaba, but if discussions there do not translate into action soon, SA’s economic hub will become a miserable tale of missed opportunities.