Is South Africa’s electric grid on the narrow edge of a total collapse? According to South African business website MyBroadband, “The United States Government has advised its stakeholders in South Africa to start thinking about disaster management plans for a total collapse of Eskom’s power grid.”
The website reports that the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) convened a meeting earlier this month “to discuss business security concerns surrounding Eskom and load-shedding. Representatives from several large US-based corporations with operations in South Africa and large local companies participated in the meeting.” The OSAC defines its role as “through trusted peer network groups, consultations, trainings, events, alerts, and analysis, OSAC works together to protect U.S. interests overseas.”
The South African grid and state-owned utility Eskom, once the strongest electric system in sub-Sahara Africa, has been suffering for years from mismanagement, corruption, and multiple failures of its coal-dependent generating fleet, described in The Quad Report last December. Eskom has had to implement widespread load shedding for years.
The State Department’s concern about Eskom comes as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits South Africa. Reuters reported Friday (Dec. 27) in an article headlined, Yellen seeks to drum up private sector support for South Africa’s energy transition. Yellen visited South Africa’s coal mining region and she said she was scheduled to meet with “philanthropists and private sector officials and hoped Washington’s focus on a just transition would underpin their interest in backing the massive project aimed at supporting South Africa’s gradual phasing out of fossil fuels.” It’s likely Yellen was briefed about the country’s electricity woes prior to her visit.
The South African website said a nationwide blackout is a low probability, but “the consequences of a total blackout would also be devastating, making it worth preparing for even if the likelihood is low.” An unnamed U.S. government expert who attended the meeting told the website, “I have a lot of faith in Eskom System Operators. I think they really know what they’re doing. But when you start to get this level of load-shedding, and the amount of power plants that are tripping, I think it’s something we need to start thinking about.”
South Africa started 2023 with two weeks of major load-shedding, sometimes lasting up to eight hours. Eskom has implemented load shedding every day this year. A black start to the country’s grid could take a week to two weeks, the official said. It would likely be accompanied by looting and civil unrest. “What’s left after a blackout would be what was left after a civil war.”
An affiliated South African news site BusinessTech reported, “Civil action group AfriForum says it has plans to start its own power generation company,” based on new nuclear generating plants. Eskom has two operating nuclear reactor units at the Koeberg site near Cape Town, with a total capacity of 1,940 MW and a lifetime capacity factor of 84%. The Framatome pressurized water reactors went into service in 1984, after construction began in 1976.
Eskom has consistently backed away from further nuclear development, although it took a close look at a gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor concept from 2004 to 2010. Cost has been the hurdle the utility has been unwilling to take on.
AfriForum is contemplating a series of small modular reactors, the nuclear flavor de jour around the world. Venture capitalist André Pienaar is working with the civic group. “Although developing a modular reactor is expensive, the costs can be offset once it becomes operational,” he said.
In the meantime, Bloomberg reports, Turkish company Karpowership has applied to the South African government for permission to supply 1,220-MW of power to Eskom “from three ship-mounted gas-fired power plants that environmentalists have said would contribute to carbon emissions and disrupt marine ecology and fishing. They have also objected to the 20-year duration of the contract.” A decision is scheduled for March 7. “South Africa is in the midst of an acute energy crisis,” Karpowership said. “The company is ready to help ease the heavy burden of South Africa’s energy crisis.”
In a related development, the Wall Street Journal reports that Eskom CEO André de Ruyter resigned earlier this month after being poisoned by cyanide. It was not fatal, but de Ruyter immediately submitted his resignation after surviving the attack, which he believes was administered in his morning coffee in his office.
The Journal noted, an understatement, “Even without the suspected poisoning, which is being investigated by local police, taking the helm of the company that supplies some 90% of South Africa’s electricity comes with a daunting job description.”
–Kennedy Maize
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