The year 2019 is the worst year that saw the worst power cuts South Africa had ever experienced at one point reaching stage 6 load-shedding. South African should expect heavy load-shedding to continue for at least Two to Three years, indeed it will triple as South African should expect over 4,500GWh of load-shedding in 2022, compared to the 1,352GHh the country suffer in 2019 avers by Energy Availability Factor (AEF). Not only will load-shedding continue over next few years – it will get worst.
Research was conducted and Wright noted 3 key steps that urgently need to be implemented to help resolve the crisis faced by Eskom and the energy grid.
- Customer response at scale:
This entails an immediate focus on customer response by enabling regulations that make it possible for the businesses and homes to generate their own power.
This does not need to take the form of going completely off-grid, but rather generating some power to complement that which is provided by Eskom.
This could be implemented as soon as this year and would help deal with short-term power shortages. - DMRE RMPPP
The DMRE Risk Mitigation Power Purchase Programme (RMPPP) must be accelerated to address the remaining capacity and energy gaps within the country and to ensure capacity can come online timeously.
This programme is only set to come online in 2022, said the researchers, although this could be accelerated to mid-2021. This would result in a further reduction in load shedding. - Implement IRP 2019
It is important to place an immediate focus ministerial determinations for all technologies outlined in the IRP 2019, followed by the procurement process to ensure this is implemented timeously.
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