Important Energy Plan Unveiled
 The long-awaited draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) recently released by a cabinet inter-departmental committee assisted by experts, announced a 20 year energy mix that would see coal taking a lesser role to renewable and nuclear energy.
The cabinet inter-departmental committee, on the occasion of the release of the draft plan, announced that it was aimed at providing an indication of the country’s energy needs and how to slake the power thirst best over the longer term. Sixteen different scenarios were considered, and the "revised balanced scenario" favoured makes provision for the completion of the two massive coal-fired stations under construction, Medupi and Kusile, thereafter curtailing carbon emissions radically.
The implementation of the plan depends on a welter of policy and legislative interventions such as giving attention to critical issues as the pricing thereof properly and independently. "The Government is seeking to balance the key parameters of carbon emissions, cost of electricity production, security of supply, the creation of sustainable jobs and limiting water usage", the committee acknowledged.
The draft IRP notes that the revised balanced scenario provided "a good foundation" to meet South Africa’s carbon mitigation targets made during the global climate talks in Copenhagen held during December 2009, as a great deal of international funding would be required to meet these commitments. Funding will remain one of the biggest constraints for the implementation of the draft or future IRP. The draft plan is based on an assumption of an annual growth domestic product of 4.6 percent per year over the next two decades, during which time, it is estimated the country would need 52 248 megawatts of new electricity generation capacity as demand grows and old coal-fired power stations were decommissioned.
In addition to the long-term blueprint, the cabinet inter-departmental committee in the draft plan attempted to better understand electricity supply risk up to 2016. It indicated that a repeat of the rolling "blackouts"of 2008 was likely without extraordinary steps taken to accelerate private sector generation as well as energy efficient projects, and found that delays in bringing the Medupi and Kusile coal-fired power stations into operation would prolong and exacerbate the shortfall in the supply.
The proposed energy mix is based on a 48 % coal, 14 % nuclear, 16% renewable energy, 9 % open cycle gas turbines for peak hours with 6% from pump storage as well as another 5% of gas and 2% of imported hydro-energy. The plan suggests that the cost to the South African economy would escalate too much if the construction of the Kusile coal generating facility was abandoned. The Kusile project would however come with other costs, chiefly aimed at restricting carbon emissions.
The draft IRP, in the long term, recognises a major dependence on coal. The stagnation of the minerals sector could lead to the new generating capacity being left stranded, which could cause electricity prices to escalate further.
Pieter Rautenbach |
