AHREN POSTHUMUS: South Africans must not let this crisis go to waste

SA businesses have been at the mercy of our defunct and corrupt power provider since the first round of load-shedding almost 15 years ago. According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, last year South Africans endured the most load-shedding-intensive year, with more than 1,900 hours of power cuts on record. We were plunged into darkness for over 192,000 minutes. That’s a 200% increase from any other year. 

Bureau for Economic Research chief economist Hugo Pienaar states that stage 6 load-shedding during business hours can cost our economy more than R500m per hour. Countless businesses, stores and ventures have had to dismiss their staff and close their doors as a result. For many, the cost of running any manufacturing process or business in SA is simply too high. 

SA’s National Energy Crisis Committee (Neccom), a body run by the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa, expects record power outages to ease as various measures, including a new law to fast-track plant development, take effect. As it stands, emergency legislation is being finalised to allow the faster approval and development of power plants. This will include the development of more than 100 privately owned power plants, which could produce up to 9,000MW.

But what of renewable energy? Business and Neccom expect 850MW-1,000MW to be added to the grid from rooftop solar this year, with the government looking to invest in longer-term plans that will include additional power from solar, wind, gas and battery-storage facilities.

It is clear that several mechanisms exist to empower and uplift our businesses and communities from the depths of Eskom’s abyss. It is time to make renewable energy the cornerstone of our approach to end the economically destructive path we find ourselves on.

Economics and energy advisory group Meridian Economics recently updated its 2021 energy report on load-shedding with the ways we could alleviate our country and people of this crisis. The updated report revealed that the addition of just 5GW of additional power to our grid from renewable energy sources (such as solar), could have eliminated 71%-92% of load-shedding, depending on supplementary measures to relieve diesel supply constraints as well. 

Business Unity SA (Busa) has been particularly vocal about this, arguing that the government should agree to buy any existing surplus power from the private sector and provide tax breaks for solar installations on residential and business premises. This would in effect incentivise South Africans — and businesses — to transition to clean and renewable solar energy. 

Thankfully, we also have the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which is aimed at bringing additional megawatts onto the country’s electricity system through private sector investment in wind, solar and hydro power, among others. This could be the real turning point for our country, particularly if we can harness enough private sector investment into a concentrated solar power (CSP) system in the Northern Cape.

CSP systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight onto a receiver. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat (solar thermal energy), which drives a heat engine (usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator.

A remarkable fact that escapes most South Africans is that the Northern Cape is actually the most sun-efficient location on Earth. A number of metrics (capacity to generate solar power, number of hours of daylight, accessible land mass) all come together to make the province a proverbial solar gold mine. 

Here’s the real moneymaker though — SA could easily fit enough solar panels on the expansive, desolate territory of the Northern Cape to power the entire globe — theoretically, of course. Let that permeate. We are experiencing a national energy crisis when we have the land, the means and the resources to power our nation using renewable energy.

As a bonus, we could sell any excess power to keep the world’s lights on too. This would drive and increase SA’s capacity to earn foreign revenue, in a global political economy that is being devastated by fuel increases, energy shortages and fossil fuel pollutants. We simply cannot let this opportunity, and crisis, go to waste. 

We are a resilient people, and we have repeatedly overcome the debilitating corruption that permeates our government structures and leadership. Thankfully, where they have failed the private sector and civil society have always come together to find a solution that works. We cannot let this crisis go to waste and we cannot afford more job losses and business closures in a country with the highest unemployment rate in the world.  

We have a right to a stable power supply to grow our businesses, educate our youth and stimulate our economy. So, let’s build a solar park in the Northern Cape. Let’s choose to charge other countries for proudly SA solar power.

• Posthumus is CEO at Momint.