Page 4 - AfrOil Week 12 2023

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

South Africa has long been dependent on coal-fired power stations (File Photo)
Taking a regional approach

to South Africa’s energy crisis

The African Energy Chamber is convinced that collaboration with other African

states will yield better solutions to the current shortages, writes NJ Ayuk

ON Tuesday, November 9, 1965, 30mn people well-being.
living in an 80,000-square-mile swath of North As the African Energy Chamber (AEC)
WHAT: America were plunged into total darkness by an notes in its new report, The State of South Afri-
South Africa should electricity blackout that lasted 13 hours. can Energy, it’s not unusual for power to be
embrace cooperation The power failure, which struck the Cana- interrupted for about six hours per day. That’s
with neighbouring states, dian province of Ontario and 10 US states, could six hours per day when the engines of the con-
as well as domestic not have come at a worse time — rush hour — or tinent’s most industrialised and technologically
development projects, in a worse place: Its epicenter was New York City. advanced economy are shut down. It’s been
as it works to maximise
access to gas. There, an estimated 800,000 subway commuters estimated that losses related to power outages
were stranded underground, and thousands of amount to somewhere between ZAR1.5bn and
WHY: office workers were stuck between floors in sky- ZAR4bn (about $87-232mn) per day.
The country’s energy scraper elevators. Planes couldn’t land at dark- According to the AEC report, South Afri-
woes have complex ened airports, and surgeons reportedly worked ca’s economy could have been 17% larger than
causes and have been by flashlight after hospital backup generators it is today if load shedding never needed to be
brewing for nearly two failed. The world was aghast that something like implemented. (Imagine what that would do for
decades. this could happen in such a rich nation. the nation’s 34%+ unemployment rate!)
Clearly, the power failure was no laughing Despite government efforts to right the ship,
WHAT NEXT: matter at the time. Yet just three short years so far the problem shows no sign of reversing:
There will be more calls later, what remains to this day one of the big- Last year was the worst ever for power cuts, with
to drop fossil fuels in gest blackouts in history was being parodied on South Africa losing about 205 days of electricity.
favour of renewables as screen in the American comedy, Where Were
IOCs struggle to wrap You When the Lights Went Out? Complex and constant
up plans for developing While the 1965 Northeastern Blackout was
regional infrastructure..
Not funny eventually traced to a simple cause — a faulty
For South Africans, the question of where you protective relay at a Canadian power station —
were when the lights went out is hardly funny, the reason for South Africa’s electricity woes is
and the answer will probably be: Which time? more complex and has been brewing for nearly
Because of load-shedding by state-owned two decades.
South African electricity provider Eskom, fre- But mainly what it comes down to is this:
quent and widespread rolling blackouts have Eskom’s coal-fired power plants are old, defec-
been happening since 2008. And though the tive, and undermaintained, so breakdowns are
purpose of load-shedding is to prevent the entire nearly constant. The lack of investment in new
power-generating system from failing under generating capacity doesn’t help, of course, and
high demand, thereby avoiding the kind of neither do the factors South African President
catastrophe that beset North America nearly 60 Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned in a January 2023
years ago, unreliable electricity has taken a toll blog post: corruption and criminality, sabotage
on South Africa’s people, businesses, and insti- of infrastructure, rising municipal debt, and a
tutions — not to mention the country’s financial lack of suitable skills.

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 30•March•2023