South Africa will need 20 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation capacity by 2020 and would require double that amount a decade later to meet rising demand, the country’s power utility said on Monday.
But the utility’s current expansion projects and power to be supplied by independent power producers (IPPs) would provide only just more than 14 GW by 2017 towards that requirement, it added.
Current installed generation capacity in South Africa, including imported power, amounts to 43,5 GW.
”We have a very tight supply demand balance and it will continue like that in the next five to 10 years … the situation has improved, but there are still risks,” said Kannan Lakmeeharan, managing director at the utility’s system operations and planning division.
He said the projections took into account the fact that Eskom will start to decommission old power stations from 2023.
Eskom has been rationing electricity since early last year when the national grid nearly collapsed, forcing mines, smelters and manufacturing plants to shut temporarily and costing the biggest economy in Africa billions of dollars.
The utility has embarked on an ambitious R385-billion new power expansion programme, but would need further investments to cover the gap between supply and demand.
Eskom said a third new power station would be needed by 2017 in addition to the two coal-fired power stations currently under construction. The two stations are meant to supply an additional 4 800 megawatts each.
The third station or a series of smaller plants could be built by Eskom or IPPs.
”This decision [on the third plant] will have to be made in the next year to ensure that water and transmission network infrastructure is built in time to commission this capacity by 2017,” Lakmeeharan said.
To fire its power stations, the utility will require 180- to 200-million tonnes of coal a year from 2018, up from 120- to 130-million tonnes at the moment, it said.
Lakmeeharan said the utility was highly confident it would be able to supply enough power for the 2010 Fifa World Cup and would minimise maintenance during that period to avoid outages. — Reuters