Inverters, batteries, solar panels, transmission access, wind farms, the search for gas… The energy crisis facing us is massive and few of us are equipped to understand what the hell is going on.

A few years ago, we sat around a table in Stanford in the Western Cape listening to engineering boffins suggesting that the time had come for our little village to divorce itself from Eskom using solar energy to keep the lights on.

We all loved the idea.

Stanford would be the first village in Africa to do so. Then came Covid and we were so busy giving the unvaccinated a wide berth that we forgot about the solar story, and worried whether we would live long enough to see any light at all.

Anton Eberhard, emeritus professor in the Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business – an everyman when it comes to energy activism – reminded us this week that the visionary fairy tale we thought was a bit dotty at the time may not be so far off the mark after all. 

“It’s still a valid concept, but visionary ideas of going it alone have moved far forward since then. In fact, right now we are in the midst of an energy revolution sweeping the world. It’s unstoppable.”

At the heart of this revolution are the sun and the wind, now the cheapest source of electricity, coupled with storage. In my own mind I ask why has it taken so long to harness something that’s been there for billions of years.

The frustration, he explains, is the reluctance of key players in the ruling party to embrace this radical energy transition. It has to do with a number of things – “political ideology, vainly believing Eskom can still be an instrument of a developmental state when plainly it is not, suspicion of the private sector, personal gain, corruption, criminal syndicates. And it’s costing the country dearly.”

Like many academics, Eberhard has a quietly measured way of describing the issues at hand. So, when pictures of damaged coal power facilities (often touted as the way out of the crisis) appear like scenes from an active war zone in Ukraine, the urgency of what he is saying hits home.

The hub and nub of South Africa’s power emergency is this, says Eberhard:

Eskom is broken; it has lost too many skills; old power plants have been poorly maintained and cannot easily be revived, no matter how much taxpayers’ money is thrown at them. Gone is the culture of excellence it once had. It has had 15 CEOs in 15 years.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Eskom news

Coal power is dead in the water, and no banks will finance it alongside international understanding of the need to reduce the carbon footprint.

Eskom’s coal units are failing at a rate faster than new generation is being added. The energy minister’s power procurements over the past five years have resulted in only 150MW being connected to the grid when we need 6,000MW or 8,000MW of additional power now.  

Eskom electricity prices have nearly trebled in 10 years. In 2014, a kWh tariff was 67.9 cents. The tariff now is R1.86 and from April it will rise to R2.01. The less electricity consumers use, the more Eskom needs the price to go up to earn sufficient revenue.

In 2023, Eskom’s loss was R23-billion and the utility is technically insolvent, surviving only on fiscal bailouts.

In Eskom’s own words, the utility has an outdated business model which is in a “death spiral”;  it has operational and structural inefficiencies and a lack of transparency; and it needs to embrace the energy transition. This was all said five years ago.

A pack-for-Perth scenario? But, and thank goodness there is a but, there is light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

The President’s Energy Plan appears at last to be taking shape, says Eberhard, who chaired Cyril Ramaphosa’s Eskom Sustainability Task Team in 2018/19 – 20 years after the country’s Energy Policy White Paper was first mooted.

“Solar and wind energy are fast taking over as the energy leaders thanks to technological innovation, including new ways of stabilising the national power systems, as the share of these variable sources on the transmission grid increases. In Australia, for example, rooftop solar has reformed and streamlined the energy market, with 3.2 million householders becoming major providers, in effect equivalent to a virtual power station. No reason why we can’t do the same,” he says.

In South Africa there will be a need to add more than wind and solar to the energy mix in the immediate future. Although a controversial issue, this will also include gas. The gas reserves in the Mozambican Pande and Temane fields, says Eberhard, are predicted to run out by 2030. And, he warns, Sasol has already given notice that it will terminate supplies to industrial users by 2026.

“If I can predict the future, it will be that Namibia’s economy will grow rapidly as its recently discovered offshore oil and gas resources are developed. If South Africa were to provide a more favourable enabling environment, then its resources off Mossel Bay and in the Orange River basin could also be developed, providing a flexible resource to complement the variability of solar and wind energy.”

South Africa, he believes, has a narrow window of opportunity to put these energy plans into action.

“While the interventions at Eskom are positive and there are encouraging signs of private investment in generation, we are moving far too slowly on new power generation. More than R1-trillion, 60GW, is needed by 2030. We are way off those targets.” DM

Professor Anton Eberhard was addressing an Overstrand Stanford Probus meeting two weeks ago. Probus is a local, national and international association of retired people who come together in non-political, non-sectarian, non-profit, autonomous clubs.

Cape Town is turning electricity consumers into power sellers

Solar cashbacks are part of the policy changes that are changing the energy landscape in Cape Town.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says technological advances in the power generation sector have transformed electricity consumers into power sellers earning credits against their total municipal bill, and receiving cash for power fed back into the grid. 

Previously, sellers could only be credited against their electricity bill up to a zero balance.

Businesses and households have earned more than R25.8-million under the city’s Cash for Power programme since the start of the 2022/23 financial year.

In an interview with Alec Hogg of BizNews, Hill-Lewis said the key to rolling out this system of energy provision and buyback for municipalities around the country was having a stable and solvent financial status.

Since the beginning of February 1,461 sellers have benefited from Cape Town’s Cash for Power scheme as part of the City’s broader plans to end load shedding over time.

“That must be the future for our country too,” said Hill-Lewis.

Cape Town was showing the way, the mayor added.

“The most exciting part is that residents and businesses are going to play a crucial role in helping us to end load shedding by working together as Team Cape Town.”

For more information click here. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.