Public Affairs Research Institute’s (PARI’s) energy transition programme head Tracy Ledger noted that while the end of loadshedding is good news for the country, significantly more electricity is needed for the South African economy to grow.

In an exclusive interview with Polity, Ledger highlighted that the only way for South Africa to rapidly generate cheaper electricity is from renewable energy, particular solar PV.

“Even at its current 70% availability factor, which is the highest we have seen in years, and it is a significant achievement, we need significantly more electricity in the economy and we need cheaper electricity,” Ledger said.

South Africa is approaching nearly five months with no loadshedding.

Ledger highlighted that an end to loadshedding was good, however, she said that did not mean there was enough electricity to put the economy on a significantly higher growth path to create sustainable employment.

MUNICIPAL CONSTRAINTS

When asked what was preventing municipalities from diversifying their sources of bulk electricity generation, she said one of the main constraints was the complexity of entry into a long-term power purchase agreement with an independent power producer (IPP).

Ledger said there were concerns for the municipality and IPP, with the IPP perhaps questioning municipal debt to Eskom.

Ledger noted a combination of risk management in financing and increasing the capacity and capability of municipalities to be able to ”do all of the things necessary to end up with power on the grid”.

This includes municipalities having to upgrade infrastructure.

She acknowledged that municipalities had been badly affected by loadshedding, noting that a significant amount of revenue was lost during this period.

“The damage loadshedding has done to infrastructure, and a lot of municipalities, their electricity distribution structure is very old, it does not take well to being constantly switched on and off, particularly when there are higher stages of loadshedding.”

She said this resulted in huge repairs and cost burdens on municipalities.

SMALL BUSINESS & SKILLS

She also noted the negative impact of loadshedding on small businesses, particularly macro enterprises, as many could not afford generators, solar or have any form of back-up energy supply.

Meanwhile, she stated that the skills and capabilities needed to integrate renewable power onto a municipal grid were in short supply.

“They are quite difficult skills to access, it is not as simple as buying a bit of extra power from Eskom. Grids needs to be reconfigured, we need investments in upgrading the grid. If we want to have more power going to previously under-serviced parts of the economy, like the township areas, we need significant upgrades of infrastructure,” she said.

She explained that budget was also another factor of concern, noting that the infrastructure backlog was estimated at around R200-billion.

“We have estimated that the infrastructure backlog in local government, in electricity distribution infrastructure is about R200-billion, it is difficult to see where that money will be coming from,” she said.