South Africa data trends
South Africa’s electricity supply industry faces the future
said there should be no loadshedding – so long as unplanned outages stayed at 13GW or below. This forecast proved correct. Thanks to weaker demand and the return of generation units after maintenance, there was no load-shedding from March 2024 until the end of the year. According to Nedbank’s Energy Tracker load-shedding resumed at a lower level in Q1 2025 but the trend is downwards. It declined from more than 23GW in 2023 to just over 4GW in 2024. This does not mean the risk has been eradicated. In a worst- case scenario, the loss of critical capacity from the Matimba, Kendal, and Medupi coal-fired plants would result in stage 13 load-shedding.
The path of restructuring and innovation is unstoppable. Loadshedding is over for now thanks to sub-optimal demand, but the problems which caused it still need fixing. New generation capacity has been added but much more is needed. Transmission expansion plans will transform the sector. The current generation or transmission expansion plans will transform the sector. The objectives will only be attained with private sector participation.
The next phase of on- grid private-sector funded renewable energy additions has the potential to change South Africa’s
The worst of South Africa’s electricity supply crisis may now be over, but enormous challenges remain, and the structural and commercial changes that the crisis made necessary now have a life and momentum of their own. All the evidence shows that the decisive shifts that have already occurred will be followed by yet more reform. Perhaps the most fundamental change that has already taken place is a reformulation of the relationships between key electricity industry participants: that is the state, the state-owned utility (Eskom) and transmission system operator (TSO), consumers of power, and the private sector. Precipitated by an existential crisis at the utility, Eskom, this reformulation has triggered what now looks to be an unstoppable cascade of restructuring and innovation. Multi-year failures at Eskom reached their nadir in 2023 when the country experienced 262 days of loadshedding. But during 2024 the power supply situation has improved with reduced load-shedding experienced in the first quarter of the year and no power cuts at all in the second and third quarters. In its six-month summer period forecast, running from 1 September 2024 to 31 March 2025, the utility
electricity supply industry beyond recognition
Eskom’s electricity availability factor (EAF) increased to 60% in 2024 a level previously experienced in 2021, and still well below that of previous years and also below the 75% envisaged in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). 1 Demand has remained below its 2019-2021 average, despite a recent increase. This is because so many businesses and households have shifted to self-generated solar in response to the power crisis. It is, therefore, a permanent reduction. Meanwhile dispatchable power has exceeded the level reached in 2023 but is still below its 2019- 2021 average.
1 Integrated Resource Plan 2019, Department of Mineral Resources and Energy: www.dmre.gov.za/Portals/0/Energy_Website/IRP/2019/ IRP-2019.pdf
1
South Africa’s Energy Prospects
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online