SA needs long term solutions to address energy crisis – experts
South Africa needs to take a holistic approach in its efforts to end load shedding, and focus on more than the immediate generation challenges.
This is according to some industry experts gathered in Sandton on Thursday to discuss the impact of the energy crisis on the country's economy.
Energy expert Ruse Moleshe said government needs to extend its focus beyond the supply challenges if it is to adequately address the crisis.
“How are we going to develop generation capacity and how are we going to transmit that if we don’t concentrate also on the transmission side of things? The investment of infrastructure to enable the transmission of energy to where it’s supposed to be.
“What then after we reduce the energy availability factor, we reduce the intensity of load shedding and then tomorrow we have another problem because the economy grows?”
The sentiment was echoed by Schneider Electric’s Taru Madangombe, who said with the relaxation of the red tape for independent power producers there’s the potential for a supply surplus but limited transmission capacity.
“If we are not able to focus on the transmission and the grid side, we won’t be able to connect to the grid because we’ll be having some constraints and we are already seeing that. Meaning you might have an over surplus of generation facilities but now you can’t have the right infrastructure to evacuate this to the right place. But it’s still good news to the industry.”
At the same time, energy economist Lungile Mashele said the healthcare, mining, and agricultural sectors continue to be adversely affected with long-term ramifications on the quality of education, food security, health, and safety.
“Life healthcare as well as Netcare has come out to say they are spending about R30 million -R 35 million on diesel alone. They are not able to do surgeries, or certain procedures such as MRI scans because generators at times kick in and kick-off and as a result, you can’t have a person in that machine.”
A 2030 Reading Panel report revealed that the basic literacy rate among South African children has declined, with over 80% of learners in grade 4 unable to read for meaning.
While the impact of the Covid pandemic was a major factor, Mashele said load shedding continues to affect teaching and learning at schools with over a thousand hours lost to the rolling power cuts in 2022.
“In 10 years’ time we will be talking about the quality of education in this country, and we will not understand why we are not delivering quality engineers, teachers, and nurses; and it’s because our kids – whether middle income, rich or poor – have lost over 40 days of schooling last year.”
