TOM EATON | Time to ditch the ANC/Eskom songsheet and go solar

As I gazed at the photo published by Eskom this week, reportedly showing some sort of flue that had snapped off some sort of chimney attached to the Kusile power station, I thought about how ironic that pretty name has become.

Once, back when the power station was little more than a twinkle in the eye of those Hitachi and Chancellor House creatures, and hadn’t yet become synonymous with the ANC habit of eating the cream and leaving the rest to rot, “Kusile” might even have been an inspiring name.

“The dawn has come”, after all, is a lovely idea, or at least it was until it turned to ash in Cyril Ramaphosa’s mouth.

Now, thanks to those endless promises, and the worst load-shedding in South Africa’s history, we are all much, much more cautious about celebrating the coming dawn, first checking Twitter to make sure the glow on the horizon isn’t a large substation blowing up, then checking Eskom Se Push to see how many hours of blackouts this bright new day will bring us, before going out into the hours and hours of sunshine that won’t be turned into electricity because we’re still trying finish our coal-fired power stations.

Perhaps this is why the country has reacted with such curious underwhelm to Eskom’s announcement a week ago that South Africa will have to install 53GW of generation capacity in the next ten years — far outstripping anything the ANC has even dreamed of, and incorporating great swathes of the renewables our energy minister hates — if we’re going to come close to enjoying regular electricity.

The ANC and Eskom keep telling us they are trying to fix the problem, but, to quote Yoda, try not. Do. Or do not.

Of course, there are other sensible reasons for our collective silence. The numbers are enormous, and therefore numbing. A great many South Africans also don’t trust anything Eskom says or does, and have perhaps decided that those 53GW either aren’t real or are simply another teat for embedded cadres to cluster around.

Mostly, however, I think that most of us aren’t jumping up and down because we understand that we’re well past the histrionic phase. The ANC and Eskom keep telling us they are trying to fix the problem, but, to quote Yoda, try not. Do. Or do not.

On Thursday afternoon, Ramaphosa told parliament how we got to this position, clapping back at both Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, after their recent swipes at him, by reminding the country that there had been “insufficient investment in new generation capacity when it was needed two decades ago”, and that “this situation was made worse by the delay in building Medupi and Kusile, the faulty design of key components, state capture and corruption, and the loss of experienced staff”. Boom.

He went on to explain that the national energy crisis committee would make sure that Kusile finally gets finished, and that power stations will be properly staffed and maintained, and that law enforcement will crack down on the baddies, and that climate funds will help wean us off coal.

It all sounded grand if you’d just woken up from a 15-year coma. But if Ramaphosa’s government could install 53GW — hell, if it could install half of that, or simply maintain what it already has — I can’t help feeling that it would have started happening by now.

If it happens — and that’s a very big if — it will happen because the ANC has been dragged off the levers, and replaced with a coalition, almost certainly involving the ANC and the EFF, that puts delivery above self-interest. Like I said, a very big if.

So what do we do? Honestly? Start figuring out if buying rooftop solar is a better option than renting it. Ramaphosa and the ANC might have screwed up their dawn, but you can turn yours into sweet, sweet power.