{"id":836096,"date":"2025-08-27T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=836096"},"modified":"2025-08-27T14:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T12:00:21","slug":"the-next-disaster-for-south-africa-is-fast-approaching-wip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/836096\/the-next-disaster-for-south-africa-is-fast-approaching-wip\/","title":{"rendered":"The next disaster for South Africa is fast approaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa is heading towards another electricity disaster unless urgent action is taken to expand and upgrade the national power grid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next decade, the country will need around R390 billion to connect a huge number of new renewable energy projects that are in the pipeline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without this investment, many of these projects may never be plugged into the system, creating the risk of a fresh load shedding crisis within the next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nedbank\u2019s latest Energy Prospects report, compiled with African Energy, showed that the electricity sector is changing rapidly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Private renewable energy projects are growing at an incredible pace and are set to compete directly with Eskom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, projects in the pipeline added up to 63 gigawatts. By 2024, this had jumped to 172 gigawatts. To connect these, South Africa needs about 134 gigawatts of new grid capacity. However, the grid does not have the space for all this power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern Cape, which has the best solar and wind resources, needs over 29 gigawatts of capacity, while the Free State and Hydra Central need more than 20 and 18 gigawatts, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom\u2019s own assessment showed there is currently no capacity left in these regions. The Eastern and Western Cape are in the same position, with close to 17 gigawatts of projects waiting for space. Only KwaZulu-Natal still has more grid availability than demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fixing this will require a massive build-out. Nedbank estimated that 14,200 kilometres of high-voltage lines and 170 transformers must be constructed over the next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would provide around 106,000 MVA of transformer capacity. However, these projects take seven to ten years to deliver, and Eskom would need to work at eight times its current pace to complete them by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan Fourie, the CEO of renewable energy company Mulilo, said<\/a> this grid shortage is already stalling projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are gigawatts worth of projects that are being gridded out at the moment. The areas with the best resources and ample space can\u2019t connect to the grid, and it\u2019s largely a legacy issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heading for a cliff <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
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Mulilo chairman Jan Oberholzer and CEO Jan Fourie<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The grid was designed around Eskom\u2019s old coal power plants, with power lines built to carry electricity from coal stations to major cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we find is that these areas with lots of wind, solar, and space didn\u2019t have much load back in the day, so there wasn\u2019t a big investment into power lines because it wasn\u2019t economically viable at the time,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow with renewables, given that generation is distributed, we must redesign and capacitate the grid. This is not a new issue, but it should have been addressed a long time ago.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also pointed out that substations are just as important as new lines. \u201cSubstations are like big multi-plugs for power lines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that\u2019s where power lines join, where you can switch them on and off, and where power is stepped up to transmission voltages so it can be transferred across the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of these limits, ready-to-go renewable projects with financing and buyers are sitting idle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are at least a couple of gigawatts ready to go, with offtakers and financing in place, but they\u2019re being held up by grid upgrades that need to happen,\u201d said Fourie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has promised to build new transmission lines, but progress has been slow. Fourie warned that Eskom cannot do this alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe private sector really needs to be mobilised alongside the new National Transmission Company of South Africa to build these power lines as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that while some projects still have limited grid access, the sustainability of renewable energy expansion is under threat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOtherwise, we\u2019re going to be hitting a cliff in a couple of years when all the grid is officially dried up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some steps are being taken. The Independent Transmission Projects programme has been launched, and private companies are expected to participate in building grid infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, time is running out. \u201cIf nothing is done in the next three to five years, fewer and fewer new projects will be able to connect to the grid,\u201d Fourie warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that South Africa has the engineering skills to do the work, but lacks construction capacity after years of decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There hasn\u2019t been a large build-out in recent years, so we need to upskill and retool construction companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are already about five transmission substations under construction, but the construction industry has been decimated in recent years, so capacity needs to be rebuilt to keep up with the infrastructure rollout,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa is heading towards another disaster unless urgent action is taken to expand and upgrade the national power grid.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":660717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164,22878,1799,853],"class_list":["post-836096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom","tag-mulilo-renewable-energy","tag-nedbank","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836096"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836113,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836096\/revisions\/836113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}