Motheo Khoaripe interviews energy analyst Chris Yelland, MD of EE Business Intelligence.
- Eskom is reportedly looking for 1 000MW of surplus electricity 'that may exist out there in customers that are willing to generate into the grid'.
- The cost to the economy of NOT having electricity is high so Eskom must investigate this option says energy analyst Chris Yelland. He points out that there's also power available it does not even have to buy.
South Africa's power cuts should start easing within the next 10 days when big generation units are expected to come back online says Eskom CEO André de Ruyter.
In the latest update Eskom said Stage 4 will continue until 5 am on Thursday morning and will then be reduced to Stage 3 until 5 am on Saturday.
RELATED: Energy crisis forces SA to reconsider taking out international financial loans
An article by Bloomberg quotes de Ruyter as saying "We are doing everything possible to add MW to the grid".
“We have started buying power from Zambia, and we are looking at Mozambique and the private sector to add megawatts" he told Radio Sonder Grense.
Motheo Khoaripe talks to Chris Yelland, energy analyst and MD of EE Business Intelligence.
In an interview with Moneyweb, Yelland said he's heartened by the appointments to Eskom's new board.
While the board performs a very necessary oversight role, it doesn’t bring the solutions he emphasized.
They are still confronted by a utility that is fundamentally, financially, operationally, and environmentally unsustainable and, quite frankly, broken. Really, the efforts are going to come from the CEO and the executives.
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
Would the reported plan to procure surplus power make a big difference to the current energy crisis?
"That remains to be seen, they're going to the market to see what they can get and they are talking about 1 000MW of generation capacity that may exist out there in customers that are willing to generate into the grid, for a fee of course.
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
1 000MW is far from enough to solve Stage 4 power cuts Yelland says, but it will help.
The other question is whether Eskom has the money to procure extra power.
Yelland notes that getting diesel for its gas turbines is hugely expensive and Eskom would probably argue it can't afford this, but is doing it anyway.
1000mw is not insignificant if you can deliver it quickly... It comes at a cost but perhaps at a cost that is comparable with running the open cycle gas turbines... and certainly it will be worth it because sometimes even those gas turbines are not able to operate because they run out of diesel...
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
The point is, the cost to the economy of not having electricity is very high and therefore it's got to look to all sorts of electricity and a lot of electricity it doesn't even need to procure - if customers are encouraged and incentivized to do self-generation, embedded generation, wheeling of electricity across the grid... that can bring on a new generation capacity at NO cost to Eskom and at no cost to the fiscus.
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
We've said this time and again, in Vietnam last year, 9 000MW of new generation capacity from rooftop solar PV and battery energy storage in the commercial and domestic sector alone - that's what they delivered to the grid! That's at no cost to the government, because it's built by customers not by government.
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
Listen to the interview at the top of the article
This article first appeared on CapeTalk : Eskom 'shopping' for electricity - '1000MW won't solve Stage 4, but will help'