South Africa celebrates 150 days without power outages. New auction for large-scale photovoltaic power plants oversubscribed

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South Africans have faced increasing electricity rationing (load shedding) in recent years. The impact of load shedding on households and businesses has been brutal, and the South African Reserve Bank says South Africa loses up to R900 million ($50 million) per day during the heavier periods of load shedding, when consumers can experience 12 hours of load shedding per day. However, there is some very good news for South Africans. Today, Eskom, South Africa’s national electricity provider, announced a remarkable achievement of 150 consecutive days (equivalent to five months) without load shedding.

This remarkable milestone reflects the successful implementation of Eskom’s recovery plan, which began in March 2023. According to Eskom, the recovery plan has not only improved the reliability of Eskom’s power stations, but has also resulted in greater efficiency of operations. As a result, there has been a notable reduction in diesel expenditure of approximately R10.60 billion, which is 75% less than the same period last year. Eskom maintained an average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of 68% over the last seven days, with the top performing power stations – Kusile, Kendal, Majuba, Lethabo and the peaker power stations – recording an EAF of 70%. In addition, three other power stations have achieved an EAF of over 60%. This improvement is due to the continued benefits of accelerating and executing planned maintenance, partnering with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and the commitment of the power station managers and their teams.

Eskom says its operational efficiency continues to exceed expectations for the winter. Current unplanned outages over the past seven days have averaged between 9,800 and 10,900 MW. Today’s figure is 10,482 MW, 5,018 MW below the winter 2024 forecast. This leaves available generating capacity at 31,963 MW, while last night’s (23 August 2024) peak forecast was 26,420 MW.

The intense load shedding that South Africans experienced led to households and businesses quickly installing solar on their roofs, in most cases backed up by battery storage. South African households and businesses have added 3,526 MW of solar on their roofs in just two years! It’s just wonderful to see how quickly electricity generation capacity can be increased through rooftop solar. According to South Africa’s national power company Eskom, there was approximately 2,264.5 MW of rooftop solar installed in South Africa as of July 2022. According to Eskom’s latest update, South African households and businesses have now installed 5,790.5 MW of solar. Adding in the contribution of rooftops and other distributed solar systems, the total installed renewable energy capacity in South Africa is now 12,221 MW! This growth in distributed solar power, along with the 2.3 GW of utility-scale photovoltaics, is now contributing to South Africa’s own duck curve.

There is more good news. For South Africa’s 7th tender window under the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP BW7), a total of 8,526 MW of tenders were received for solar, against a target of 1,800 MW. For wind, 1,692 MW of tenders were received, against a target of 3,200 MW. It would be super cool if all solar and wind tenders received could be considered during the tender process and financing could be arranged for all of them where possible. This would bring South Africa’s installed wind and solar capacity to 22.4 GW! This does not include any additional rooftop solar that would be installed between now and the completion of REIPPPP BW7. To accommodate all of REIPPPP BW7’s solar and wind offerings, several factors would need to be considered and addressed, such as availability of grid capacity for interconnection as well as financing for off-target projects. But it would be super cool if that would happen.