SA has secured an immediate 100MW of electricity from Mozambique, says Ramokgopa

SOUTH Africa has secured an immediate 100MW of electricity from Mozambique, to be added into the national grid from as early as next week in a bid to alleviate the intensity of rolling blackouts.

This was confirmed by Minister in the Presidency responsible for Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa after meeting Mozambique’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Carlos Zacarias at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Monday.

The meeting finalised talks to secure electricity for South Africa to ease the frequency and severity of load shedding, following a previous engagement held in the Mozambique capital Maputo a fortnight ago.

Ramokgopa said Mozambique had confirmed the 100MW was immediately available to South Africa, and could be ramped up to 600MW in the next six months and 1,000MW in the long term.

“Eskom and its Mozambique equivalent EDM [Electricidade de Moçambique] will sit and engage on [outstanding] issues. But what is important for us is that as we resolve all of the above, it's important that we are able to get additional megawatts onto the grid,” Ramokgopa said.

“It's new megawatts, so the grid will get the benefit of an additional 100MW. I did say to the country that in our effort to resolve the load shedding question, we are searching for each and every megawatt available, and of course the Mozambicans have come to the party [and] they are aiding us to address that. And then we will continue to search for more because we are working on new generation capacity in the country, and we are making significant strides.”

Mozambique has big hydropower potential and some of the energy that Mozambique currently supplies to South Africa comes from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power plant in central Mozambique. The plant has a 2,075MW capacity – the largest in southern Africa.

Zacarias said Mozambique had invited the government of South Africa and different actors and entities from South Africa to participate in some of the new projects that are being developed in that country.

He said technical teams were working together to finalise all the details that would allow the supply of electricity to South Africa immediately.

“We also have other sources of energy in Mozambique. As you know, Mozambique holds very big reserves of gas resources. We have projects that supply electricity to the country based on gas and we are developing a 450MW thermal station in Temane,” Zacarias said.

“So another source of electricity that we have is based on gas and we hope that we'll have the participation of South African entities on that. And of course in the medium term we'll have the opportunity to supply electricity based on gas from this thermal station based in Temane.”

Eskom on Monday reduced load shedding to Stage 3 due to a continued improvement in available generation capacity as a result of three units that were previously down being returned to service.

Breakdowns were at 16,115MW of generating capacity, while generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance was 3,766MW.

Ramokgopa said the improvements in generation capacity at Eskom were “not an act of God”, but the result of good work by Eskom’s acting chief executive Calib Cassim and his team, the head of generation Bheki Nxumalo, and Eskom chairperson Mpho Makwana.

Meanwhile, in his weekly newsletter on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged the frustration and impatience citizens may be experiencing due to “the severity of the challenges" confronting the country.

Ramaphosa said many of these reforms were being brought about through legislative and regulatory changes, which might not inspire many people, but would have a substantial impact on people’s lives and the performance of the economy.

“Given the persistence of load shedding, for example, few people are able to contemplate the impact of a transformed energy landscape,” Ramaphosa said.

“While we are making progress towards ending load shedding, transforming the electricity market to make it more competitive and cost-effective is critical to the country’s future.”

Old Mutual Wealth investment strategist Izak Odendaal said Eskom’s load shedding was the economy’s biggest challenge, followed by the growing nightmare that is Transnet’s rail performance.

“On the electricity side, things could get worse before they get better as demand spikes in winter. But heading into summer and into 2024, Eskom’s performance can improve as Koeberg and Kusile return to action and private projects come on stream,” Odendaal said.

“A new survey by Eskom and solar and wind industry bodies shows a massive pipeline of 18GW in renewable projects in ‘advanced stages’ of development, with a further 21GW under development and 27GW at ‘early stages’ of development. Eskom’s total installed capacity is 44GW, only half of which is currently available.”

– BUSINESS REPORT