/ MEDIA RELEASE / This content is not written by Creamer Media, but is a supplied media statement.
By Wayne Alcock, Managing Director of Quyn International Outsourcing
The recent escalation of the South African energy crisis to load shedding levels 5 and 6 has highlighted the great need for businesses, industries and municipalities to generate their own power. The mines were the first to establish their own solar plants to ensure the supply of energy. Today, municipalities have done the same by submitting initiative plans to secure their own supply and eliminate dependency on the established power producer by creating decentralized power generation. Recent reports noted that eThekwini, South Africa’s third-largest city, will issue a request for proposals to build 400 megawatts of power generation capacity by the end of this year or early 2023. Alternative energy experts will need to be called in to handle planning, development, construction and maintenance of these supply plants. This is good news for South Africans, as it will mean a significant increase in the need for energy sector-specific labor and skills, as other industries and municipalities will follow suit, working to become more energy self-sufficient.
desperate times
Eskom is currently responsible for meeting 95% of South Africa’s electricity demand. In September 2022, Eskom began implementing Stage 6 power cuts, which meant businesses and homes were forced to go without power for more than 10 hours a day. Since then, the company has reduced the severity of the load shedding, oscillating between stages 2 and 3, depending on the time of day. However, it is not a simple case of being without power. Ongoing blackouts also affect the provision of other services, including the water supply in some areas, resulting in ‘water overflow’. With the South African economy already struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa is running out of time to act. As early as 2022, one of Eskom’s coal plants has passed its end-of-life status, meaning 1,000 MW will soon be offline. By 2035, another nine plants will have reached the end of their useful lives, meaning that 19,000 MW will be taken offline, putting 55,000 jobs at risk. By 2050, 12 plants will be offline, cutting 33,000MW from the grid.
Desperate measures
Speaking at the Africa Renewable Energy Investment Summit 2023 in late September, CEO Andre de Ruyter outlined Eskom’s proposed solution to South Africa’s energy crisis. The energy company plans to lean heavily on renewable energy and other planned projects. By the end of 2024, de Ruyter said most of the 33,000 MW shortfall will be covered by new projects, including:
- 3,500MW of Seriti’s renewable projects
- 1,440MW of Kusile coming online
- 2,000 MW from Independent Power Producers (IPP) on leased land
- 3,500MW of new pumped storage
- 1,500MW of municipal contracting
- 2,600MW from the Renewable Energy Independent Producers Program (REIPPP) 5 projects
- 5,200MW of REIPPP 6 projects
- 7,000+MW of other projects
address the crisis
Renewable energy is the fastest and most cost-effective way to address the country’s crisis: projects like wind and solar are cheaper to build and can come online in less than two years. By contrast, new coal construction is three to four times more expensive and is likely to take up to 12 years to complete. This puts us at risk of further cargo losses and jeopardizes almost 46% of exports if we fail to decarbonise. In early July 2022, President Ramaphosa announced a series of proposed changes and solutions indicating that the government has begun to break the monopoly of his state-owned utility. The regulatory changes are intended to encourage the development and growth of power plants by allowing power plants of any size to be built without a prior license. Previously, projects generating more than 100MW required licences, while those generating 100MW or less could only connect to the grid from 2021. In the future, Eskom will be able to buy capacity from private providers to cover shortfalls. Also included in his reforms was an increase in Eskom’s maintenance budget and an increase in the hiring of skilled workers to meet the country’s growing renewable energy sector.
Collective problem solving
Following a Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) report revealing that South Africa’s private sector will need to generate nearly as much power by 2035 as Eskom produces today, there has been an urgent call for developers, shopping malls, businesses to big scale. , communities of owners, businessmen, farmers and others to submit requests for generation, distribution and sale of energy. All of which is a good indication that a big boom is about to take place in the renewable energy sector, which will need to be met with the right skills and a huge workforce. Where will these skills and this work come from? It will not be easy for independent power producers to obtain them without help. Furthermore, the scale of manpower required is not something such entities can handle on their own.
everyone doing their part
Not only will skills and manpower be needed to plan, develop, and build renewable energy production projects, but these plants will also need to be operated, managed, and maintained once they are commissioned. Organizations looking to build their own power generation capacity will need to partner with a Temporary Employment Services (TES) provider to meet the human resource requirements of their initiatives. TES providers have an important role to play in addressing the South African energy crisis, as those who have experience in the construction and renewable energy industry will already have a vast existing database of skills and manpower. necessary. This will significantly shorten the time required to obtain, redeploy and onboard sufficient resources for the required duration. Along with contracting capabilities and a nationwide footprint, the right TES partner will also manage the human resources aspect of any renewable energy project. This means that the organization running the project (whether developer, mining company, farmer or municipality) can fully outsource this component which includes all aspects of workforce management such as payroll, compliance, training, industrial relations, delivering them with confidence. to a capable partner.
Although the future looks bleak right now, it is important that we remember that there is always hope. As South Africans, we have always demonstrated a unique ability to solve problems. If all industry players, business owners and willing households come together and contribute to the solution in whatever way they are able, we can lead South Africa out of the dark times ahead.
