Thread by @AntonEberhard

With my home solar/battery system I’ve not had a second of load-shedding in many many moons but I mourn for South Africa. Power cuts will cripple our post COVID economic recovery. They cannot be the new norm. There is a wise consensus on solutions. A reminder below /1

https://twitter.com/Eskom_SA/status/1349631746724286464

Eskom can’t solve SA’s power crisis alone. The avg age of its kit is nearly 40 yrs. 11000MW will be decommissioned by 2030. With R480 billion debt it cannot finance new capacity. Government doesn’t have the money. South Africa is now reliant on private investment for new power /2

Energy minister @GwedeMantashe1 has been in office 21 months but has yet to conclude a single government backed contract for new power. The IRP mandated 5th round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Independent Power Project Programme has been stalled since 2015 /3

Instead of implementing the least-cost options in the Integrated Energy Plan, energy minister @GwedeMantashe1 has created irrelevant diversions through punting expensive nuclear & coal options which have no chance of ameliorating South Africa’s power crisis in the next decade 4/

South Africa’s energy minister initiated an emergency power programme which was supposed to deliver power in months, now stretching into years. Still no contract awards /5

Every month of delay in launching a new auction for power as specified in South Africa’s least-cost IRP electricity plan means another month of power cuts. Why has energy minister @GwedeMantashe1 not yet launched the 5th REIPPP auction (stalled since 2015). Accountability? /6

A recent survey has indicated huge frustration with regulatory impediments in South Africa’s power sector. Electricity users should have the freedom to invest in their own power solutions. Why is energy minister@GwedeMantashe1 so resistant to further regulator reform? /7

Energy minister @GwedeMantashe1 thinks everything is fine. He says he’s working hard for energy security. But everything is patently not fine. The lights are going off and we’ll continue to see crippling load shedding until there are bold regulatory and structural reforms /8

We can’t only blame @Eskom_SA for power cuts. South Africa needs more power via DMRE auctions and regulatory reforms lifting licensing impediments. But Eskom restructuring to free the grid and market operator to procure and wheel power competitively also needs accelerating /9

All of the above points around resolving South Africa’s power crisis are increasingly being made by @Eskom_SA. South Africans are watching whether government will publish and back their reform and restructuring proposals /10