The Regional Electricity Crisis Should Be Higher Up On The Agenda For Southern African Heads of Government: Part 2
There was a big summit for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) over the past weekend in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was the 44th edition of this summit, with heads of state for 13 out of the 16 member states attending.
The SADC website states “The mission of SADC is to promote sustainable and equitable economic growth and socio-economic development through efficient, productive systems, deeper cooperation and integration, good governance and durable peace and security; so that the region emerges as a competitive and effective player in international relations and the world economy.”
This vision of sustainable and equitable economic growth will be hampered by the region’s dire electricity situation. In Part 2 of this series, we will take a look at the current state of electricity supply for those citizens that are connected to the respective member states’ national grids. Here we will focus on a number of countries that face perennial electricity rationing, infamously known as load-shedding. For a look at the current level of access to electricity, or rather a look at the percentage of citizens that are not connected to the national grids of SADC member States, you can find Part 1 of this series here.
12 countries in Southern Africa are part of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The SAPP is the most active power pool in Africa. The total installed generation capacity in the region is 80 GW. The peak demand in the region is 57 GW, however, the available capacity is only 48 GW according to the figures from the SAPP, leaving a huge electricity generation shortfall. Surely that means there should be some urgency around solving this massive generation shortfall.
The most affected member states are South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where citizens face regular electricity rationing cycles known as load-shedding. The electricity generation mix in the Southern African Power Pool is dominated by coal. Coal’s share is at 59% (mostly from South Africa and places like Zimbabwe), followed by hydro at 24%, solar PV at 4%, distillate at 3.8%, then wind and nuclear (South Africa) at 3%, and open cycle gas turbines at 2%.
9 countries are currently interconnected at the transmission level, with 3 countries not yet connected to the SAPP grid. Malawi is connected through the Mozambique – Malawi Interconnector and Tanzania is being connected through the Zambia – Tanzania Interconnector, which will lead to interconnection of SAPP and the East African Power Pool as Tanzania is also being connected to Kenya. Angola will be connected to Namibia, DRC, and Zambia.
A look at the generation and demand data shows that there is an urgent need to accelerate new interconnections as well as expand current interconnection capacity to facilitate expansion of regional trade. There are some plans around this, and one would think these should be higher up the agenda for these kinds of summits, but it does not seem to be the case.
The persistent load-shedding issues plaguing South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe could be solved by unlocking the full potential of the Southern African Power Pool as well as the East African Power Pool once it is fully activated. This is why it’s important to prioritize and accelerate planned interconnections between Tanzania and Zambia as well as Angola’s to Namibia, DRC, and Zambia.
Looking at table below from SAPP, Angola had an excess capacity of around 2.4 GW. Some of this could be taken up by other members of the SAPP as required to alleviate some of the shortfalls.
South Africa seems to be getting around to addressing the generation shortfall. Eskom recently announced four months of uninterrupted power supply since 26 March 2024, including 87 days of constant supply throughout the winter period. The suspension of load-shedding in South Africa has brought some relief to homes and business that were facing spiraling costs from using alternative sources such as diesel backup generators. Eskom reached another significant milestone on 23 July 2024 by achieving 35,000 MW of available capacity, with an evening peak demand of 30,740 MW. This level of available capacity has not been seen for six years, specifically since 16 July 2018. This achievement is attributed to reduced unplanned outages, which have dropped to 9,238 MW. Additionally, Eskom achieved an average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of 70% over the past seven days.
Eskom adds that its “Generation Recovery Plan” continues to deliver efficiencies, with an approximate R9.09 billion reduction in Open-Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) diesel expenditure from 1 April 2024 to 25 July 2024, compared to the same period last year. Eskom had been spending a lot of money on diesel. It’s good to see that rooftop solar is starting to contribute a considerable portion of South Africa’s electricity generation mix during daytime hours.
The situation is not so good for Zimbabwe and Zambia. Zimbabwe and Zambia share the Kariba Dam. The Kariba Dam was constructed between 1955 and 1959 and extends for about 280 km. It holds about 185km3 of water. On the Zimbabwe side (Kariba South), the hydropower plant now has an installed generation capacity of 1,050 MW. On the Zambian side (Kariba North), there is now an installed generation capacity of 1,080 MW, so therefore the dam has a combined capacity of 2,130 MW. The dam is a major tourist attraction for the country, second only to Victoria Falls. Lake Kariba is also now home to the world’s most productive reservoir fishery, and therefore a source of employment for the artisanal fishing industry.
The big problem is that there is a serious drought currently affecting a number of countries in southern Africa. Some reports say this is the worst drought in over 100 years. The problem is that these droughts are becoming too frequent and increasing in severity. The Kariba Dam’s water levels are extremely low at the moment as a result of these droughts, as illustrated below:
The low levels have forced the Zambezi River Authority to restrict electricity generation from Kariba Dam. Zimbabwe now has an installed capacity of about 2,500 MW. However, due to the low water levels in Kariba, ZPC, the national electricity generation company, has been forced to reduce generation at Kariba to only 215MW out of 1,050MW! Along with depressed generation at some old coal power plants, the total generation capacity has been hovering at around 1,300MW. With demand reaching close to 2,000 MW, Zimbabwe has been forced to implement severe electricity rationing cycles, which mean most citizens don’t have electricity from about 6am to 9pm daily.
In Zambia, the installed national generation capacity stands at around 3,500 MW compared to a peak national demand of approximately 2,300MW. However, due to restricted generation at Kariba North as well as other plants being out for scheduled maintenance, available generation capacity is hovering around 890MW, forcing the utility company to increase load-shedding to 17 hours a day!
If the region’s leaders have been paying attention to global developments, they would know that there has never been a better time to do this. A lot of progress has been made in the solar and stationary energy storage segments with growing market shares in a lot of countries in the developed world. The incredible ramp-up of production capacity in these sectors, as well as technological advancements over the past decade, helped unlock efficiencies in key areas, resulting in incredible price drops in the cost of production of all the essential ingredients. This has resulted in consumers now having access to solar panels and batteries at prices lower than ever.
Solar panel prices are so low now that we now hear reports that it’s cheaper to buy solar panels and use them to construct fences in some places in Europe than to use traditional fencing material! A fence that also generates clean electricity — how cool is that? You know what would be cooler? Using all this PV and battery storage to power distributed microgrids using hundreds of thousands of rooftops and carparks across these countries to complement the supply from current utility-scale generation plants. The drastic drop in prices of solar panels and batteries mean that a lot less money is needed to set all this up now in all these countries than ever before.
South Africa showed us just how quickly new generation capacity can be added from rooftop solar. South African homes and businesses have added 3,526 MW of rooftop solar in just two years! It is just wonderful to see how fast electricity generation capacity can be added from rooftop solar. According to data from Eskom, there were about 2,264.5 MW of rooftop solar PV installed in South Africa as of July 2022. According to Eskom’s latest update, South African homes and businesses have now installed 5,790.5 MW of solar PV.
Other sources can be considered as well to add to the generation mix of SADC member countries. We just need the regional leaders to show a bit more urgency. Here is a summary of the outcomes of the Summit. Doesn’t look like there was a clear and urgent call to address the electricity crisis. All of the other themes from the summit, such as “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialised SADC,” need to be backed up by a stable electricity environment. For SADC to industrialize, it must prioritize solving this electricity crisis.
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