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Cape Town - South Africans could experience power cuts from 2011 to 2016 unless extraordinary measures are taken to get independent power producer (IPPs) up and running and improve energy efficiency, reads a project team report on the dangers to electricity supply.
The so-called medium-term risk reduction project was announced on Friday, together with the energy department's long-awaited integrated electricity resource plan (IRP2).
The IRP2 was drawn up by the department after almost a year of negotiations with many players in the electricity industry.
One IRP2 proposal is to reduce the country’s electricity mix from 90% coal to 48% by 2030. The remainder must come from nuclear and renewable energy sources.
Announcements regarding the implementation and creation of an independent network operator will probably be made this week.
An independent network operator will eliminate conflicts of interest between power utility Eskom and future IPPs.
Now at least solutions to the threat of power shortages are being sought in a systematic way, said Mike Rossouw of the energy-intensive consumer group, a senior member of the team that compiled the risk report, on Sunday.
Much work was however still required, and in some cases it would cost a great deal to implement the solutions.
Two new threats have been pointed out in the report: the reduced time spent on maintaining Eskom’s fleet of power stations – which will increase the danger of unplanned cuts in coming years – and the declining quality of coal being delivered to the power stations.
A model developed together with the IRP2 shows that power stations need to observe an 85% energy availability rate to meet future demand. This is probably too little to do adequate maintenance work, according to the report.
Less maintenance means more unplanned switching off of units and reduced availability – a vicious circle.
Untimely switch-offs of generation units increased sharply in 2009. The report says this trend is likely to continue.
The compilers expect power interruptions similar to those of 2008 unless private power generators are urgently brought into play.
Any delays in building the Medupi and Kusile power stations will simply aggravate the situation.
Plans to avoid a crisis could save an effective 3 500MW of generation capacity by 2016.
These would include 1 100MW that could be saved before 2013 through demand-side management programmes from Eskom.
Other plans include big companies’ joint and privately-owned power generating projects, which could save 1 000MW to 1 500MW.
From 2012 renewable energy from IPPs could contribute 1 000MW.
According to the summary of the draft IRP2, the aim is for an electricity mix of 48% baseload electricity from coal by 2030 compared with the current 90%, 14% baseload electricity from nuclear compared with the current 6%-odd, 16% from renewable energy, 9% from peak period open cycle gas turbines, 6% from peak period pump storage schemes, 5% from middle merit gas-fired power stations and 2% from imported hydroelectricity.
To improve nuclear’s contribution six new nuclear power stations will need to be built by 2023, departmental spokesperson Bheki Khumalo told Bloomberg.
A decision on the construction of nuclear power stations needs to be taken urgently, the department says in summation.
Tristen Taylor, project coordinator of environmental group Earthlife Africa, sharply criticised the reference to nuclear power, saying that this would have significant risks because it is expensive technology requiring large-scale state subsidies.
In a statement, Earthlife Africa referred to the long delays and cost overruns at nuclear power projects elsewhere in the world.
- Sake24
For business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.
