By Lwazi Ntombela
Moving Eskom to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) is a long awaited move, which will increase efficiency, reduce bureaucracy and promote accountability.
The minister of DMRE will now be able to set the department’s and Eskom’s policy as its sole shareholder. Mantashe’s belief in an energy mix backed by a baseload of coal, gas and nuclear are in line with our Integrated Resource Plan of 2019, which seeks to transition us from high carbon emitting technologies to low carbon emitting technologies while still providing South Africans with reliable electricity.
The current sentiment in the media to paint Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe as an incompetent fossil fuel fundamentalist holds no weight, and only serves as a means to remove a competent minister who has been unfairly blamed for load shedding.
Between 2011 and 2019 (Bid window 1-4) Independent Power Producers installed were just more than 6000 MW - this is an underwhelming figure compared to the Bid window 5.
Big window 5 installed 2583MW and Bid window 6 planned to install 4200 MW of the Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPs) (Bid window 5 and 6 occurred under the leadership of Mantashe). Bid window 7 plans to install 5000MW of REIPPs onto the grid.
Furthermore, renewables capacity is expected to be increased by 18% by 2030 and coal capacity reduced by 15%, according to the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 signed by Mantashe. This illustrates that Mantashe’s procurement of REIPPs has been far greater than any other minister of energy. Eskom being moved to the control of Mantashe will help us realise our IRP 2019 goals.
Eskom under the leadership of Andre De Ruyter has been faced with an existential crisis because of De Ruyter’s belief in the capabilities of unreliable intermittent renewable technologies.
The power utility has swayed from its core mandate of providing electricity in an efficient manner, which has resulted in the leadership team at Eskom falling further and further into a quagmire of confusion.
Eskom has plunged us into darkness purely because the leadership over the past two years has deferred reliability maintenance which led to 205 days of rolling blackouts in 2022.
Load shedding has a dire impact on South Africans. Eskom has been burning 50 million litres of diesel per month leading to the diesel budget surpassing the maintenance budget; this is a sign of a broken system.
The number of households in South Africa are 18 million, each household has 3.34 persons and uses 800KWh of electricity in a calendar month ( i.e. 1.111KWh every hour on average). For every hour of stage 2 load-shedding these households go without electricity, impacting a million people. For every hour (of) stage 4 load-shedding 3.6 million households go without electricity, impacting 12 million people. For every hour of stage 6 load-shedding 5.4 million households go without electricity, impacting 18 million South Africans.
De Ruyter is personally liable for plunging 18 million South Africans into darkness.
Over the past few days we have seen articles, which seek to exonerate De Ruyter and his management team, citing sabotage of Eskom’s coal fleet as the main cause for failure, while Eskom’s own reports suggest otherwise.
Energy losses fall into two categories OCLF(losses outside of control of the power station manager) and UCLF (losses within control of the power station manager). Bad coal falls under OCLF.
Coal-related losses for 2022 amounted to 0.64%, while losses under the control of power station managers sit at 30%, dispelling the argument that South Africa’s coal fleet being sabotaged is the main reason we are load-shed.
Mantashe’s vast experience in the energy sector and level headed approach makes him the most suitable candidate to oversee the failing state-owned entity, Eskom.
Lwazi Ntombela is the vice-president and head of business South African Youth Economic Council.
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