South Africa’s national electricity utility, Eskom, has proposed an extra 8,000 megawatts of clean energy projects over the next two to five years to reduce load shedding.

South African Deputy President David Mabuza, disclosed this at the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.

According to him, the load shedding is mainly due to breakdowns of the old and aging power generation infrastructure and that South Africa has an “immediate need” for 4,000 megawatts to 6,000 megawatts additional generation capacity per year to provide generation capacity surplus on the system.

“To allow maintenance to improve reliability and predictability of its coal-fired power stations, which account for most of Eskom’s generation capacity,” said the deputy president. “Eskom has a total nominal capacity of 45,117MW, however, aging power stations, poor maintenance, among others, force the main electricity provider in the country to implement load shedding now and then.”

Mr Mabuza said the proposed clean energy projects include greenfield renewables and gas projects, as well as coal power plant repurposing.

“This is part of the energy transition strategy of Eskom, which has proposed a holistic approach to decarbonisation and environmental compliance by accelerating the retirement of ageing and unreliable coal plants,” added the deputy president. “Other efforts by the government include various considerations to speed up the acquisition of independent power producers and to reduce further red tape.” 

(Xinhua/NAN)