South Africa's energy supply
While the cost of electricity in South Africa is among the world's lowest, the country's strong economic growth, rapid industrialisation and a mass electrification programme led, by early 2008, to demand for power outstripping supply.As a result, state energy company Eskom has embarked on a massive programme to upgrade and expand the country's electricity infrastructure.
These plans include spending a projected R343-billion over five years to fund a new generation of power stations, with the first due to come on stream in 2013. Eskom has started work on two new coal-fired power stations, and is considering bids from two overseas companies to build a new conventional nuclear power station.
Eskom also plans to reopen three power stations that were mothballed in the 1990s, build two open-cycle gas turbines that will produce power by the end of 2009, and complete a hydro scheme in the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal.
- South Africa's electricity plan
- Power infrastructure
- Energy sources
- Nuclear energy
- Synthetic fuels, oil and gas
The government and Eskom have acknowledged their mistakes, and are working to bring South Africa's electricity supply and distribution system back into balance. In January 2008, the Department of Minerals and Energy and Eskom released a new policy document, "National response to South Africa's electricity shortage".
The plan includes work on the country's electricity distribution structure, and the fast-tracking of electricity projects by independent power producers.
It also involves electricity co-generation projects between Eskom and private industry, where the heat generated as a by-product of industrial processes in sectors such as chemicals is captured to produce power that can be used by the industries themselves, or bought by Eskom for the national grid.
At the same time, the new plan outlines the importance of reducing demand by pricing electricity correctly as well as promoting energy efficiency and deterring, and if necessary outlawing, energy inefficiency.
Eskom aims to reduce demand by about 3 000 megawatts by 2012 and a further 5 000 megawatts by 2025, through an aggressive campaign which will include promoting the use of solar-powered geysers as well as liquid petroleum gas for cooking.
The government is also set to introduce a rationing scheme that will reward and penalise customers based on their energy usage.
Power infrastructure
Energy contributes about 15% of South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP). Eskom is one of the world's 10 biggest electricity generators, and is in the top 11 in terms of sales. It generates around 95% of the electricity used in South Africa, as well as
exporting power to other African countries.
South Africa's electricity network is made up of more than 300 000 kilometres of power lines, 27 000 kilometres of which constitute South Africa's national transmission grid. The main generating stations are located in Mpumalanga province, where there are vast coal reserves.
The country's mass electrification programme, started in 1991, has seen almost 3.5-million homes electrified. The government aims to achieve universal access to electricity by 2012.
Energy sources
South Africa's economy is structured around large-scale, energy-intensive mining and primary minerals benefication industries, pushing its "energy intensity" to above average, with only 10 other countries having higher commercial primary energy intensities.
South Africa also uses coal, its major indigenous energy resource, to generate most of its electricity and a significant proportion of its liquid fuels. Because of this, South Africa is the 14th highest emitter of greenhouse gases.
However, the country is committed to reducing emissions, and is a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Eskom has said it is committed to reducing coal's current 88% share of South Africa's primary energy mix to 78% by 2012 and to 70% by 2025.
The power supply crisis has accelerated the need to diversify Eskom's energy mix and its move towards alternative energy sources such as nuclear power and natural gas, as well as various forms of renewable energy.
Nuclear energy
Eskom plans to double its total generating capacity to 80 000MW over the next two decades, with nuclear power making up about half of the new capacity.
The state supplier is considering bids from France's Areva and the US's Westinghouse Electric to build a new conventional nuclear power plant that could start generating electricity from 2016, and has said that it could build more nuclear stations by 2025.
There is currently one conventional nuclear station in the country: Koeberg in the Western Cape, which contributes about 1 800MW to the national grid.
South Africa is also going ahead with the R17-billion Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, one of the most technologically advanced capital investment projects undertaken in the country since 1994.
The PBMR is a high-temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear reactor which produces electricity. Nuclear-generated power is clean, highly efficient and cost-effective. Although it is not the only one being developed, the South African project is on schedule to be the first commercial-scale high-temperature reactor in the world.
The PBMR project entails the building of a demonstration reactor at Koeberg near Cape Town and a pilot fuel plant at Pelindaba near Pretoria. Construction is due to start in 2009, with the first fuel to be loaded four years later. If successful, another 10 plants could be built.
The PBMR project is supported by the government, Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation, and US companies Westinghouse and Exelon.
Synthetic fuels, oil and gas
South Africa has a highly developed synthetic fuels industry, in which state company PetroSA and petrochemicals giant Sasol are the major players.
The Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA) manages the country's commercial assets in the petroleum industry, including the world's largest commercial gas-to-liquids plant at Mossel Bay in the Western Cape.
Sasol
Sasol, the biggest local company listed on South African stock market the JSE, produces synthetic fuels from low-grade coal and a small amount from natural gas. It operates the world's only coal-based synthetic fuels facility, and produces 36% of liquid fuels consumed in South
Africa.
Sasol produces automotive fuels for consumers, premium fuels and lubricants for industry, as well as jet fuel, fuel alcohol and illuminating kerosene. It also converts natural gas to more environmentally friendly fuels and chemicals.
The company has interests in many other African countries, including a gas-to-liquids partnership in Nigeria and a cross-border pipeline linking the natural gas fields in Mozambique to Sasol's gas conversion plant at Secunda in South Africa's Mpumalanga province.
Sasol plans to expand its gas-to-liquid operations at Secunda by 20% over the next eight years. In January 2008 the company said it would join the South African and Mozambican governments in investing a further R1.1-billion (around US$146.8-million) to increase the pipeline's gas delivery capacity from the current 120-million gigajoules a year to about 147-million gigajoules a year.
The 865-kilometre pipeline, part of a US$1.2-billion natural gas project started in 2004, is designed eventually to be able to transport 240-million gigajoules a year.
Oil and gas supply sector
While South Africa's own deposits of oil, like its natural gas deposits, are small, its refining and downstream oil sector is developing fast.
The country has been positioning itself to supply services - including design engineering, fabrication, logistics and shipping - to the growing west African oil and gas industry.
Cape Town harbour's infrastructure is well suited for oil rig repair and maintenance - there were four drilling rigs in for work in February 2008 - and construction of South Africa's first fabrication yard for offshore oil and gas platforms was completed at Saldanha Bay in late 2007.
Saldanha Bay, situated about 60 nautical miles north-west of Cape Town, is the deepest and largest natural port in southern Africa.
The R284-million (approximately US$40-million), 220 000 square metre fabrication centre, built by German manufacturing company MAN Ferrostaal, will drastically reduce the lead and towing times for platforms used off west Africa, which until now had to be built and brought in from Europe, the Middle East, the US and south-east Asia.
Article last updated: March 2008
SAinfo reporter. Sources:
- South Africa Yearbook
- Department of Minerals and Energy
- Department of Environmental Affairs
- Eskom
- Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
- PetroSA
- Sasol
- Business Day
- Business Report
- Engineering News
- Mail & Guardian
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