2022: ELECTRICITY CHAOS: South Africa needs R1.25 trillion to stop load-shedding ($75 billion)

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[Trillions of rands are numbers unknown in South Africa. Yet here we are in 2022 and we've had electricity problems since 2008. Now, after spending lots of money, they announce that we need EVEN MORE to fix the problems! In this case over a trillion. If you want to see how much crap they spoke in the past, go and check out this story from AfricanCrisis that I posted in 2008 where they were talking about spending a total of R1.3 trillion up to 2025 and that would solve our electricity problems!!! Here's the link: http://archive.africancrisis.info/?p=23787 Jan]

South Africa will need R1.25 trillion by 2035 to add 50 gigawatts of renewable energy to the grid and end load-shedding.

This is according to Windlab managing director Peter Venn during an interview with Cape Talk’s John Maytham.

“The challenges we have with load-shedding are going to be solved by everybody getting together and using their collective resources to take a just energy transition forward,” Venn said.

“We really need to put as many Megawatts as we can on the grid. New builds are only going to come out of renewables, so we need to leverage these resources and go forward.”

“By my estimation, we need about R1.25 trillion by 2035 to stop load-shedding, and everybody has to chip in,” he added.

Venn also discussed Seriti Resources’ acquisition of a majority stake in Windlab, saying that the intention is to use renewable power to reduce the cost of coal mining and, ultimately, the cost of electricity in South Africa.

“The first underpin is to provide cheap green electricity to Seriti’s coal mines to reduce the cost of coal, which in turn, will hopefully reduce the cost of coal electricity for citizens in the country,” he said.

The deal worth R892 million will give Seriti a 51% stake in the wind and solar power business.

The remaining shares will be held by Venn with 15%, Rand Merchant Bank and Standard Bank each with 14.5%, and Ntiso Investment Holdings with 5%.

Seriti’s CEO Mike Teke said that it is “transitioning to an energy company” by moving toward lower carbon technology with the capital it receives from coal.

As the green unit looks to add renewable stations and power generation, the mining company is still “committed to coal, we will run those assets,” he said.

Seriti’s renewable energy division — Seriti Green — with the help of Windlab, is overseeing the construction of 3.5GW of renewable power projects in South Africa.

“The pipeline that Seriti Green will acquire when this finally concludes through the Competition Commission will be 3.5GW,” Venn said.

“3GW of that is based in South Africa, and we want to start construction on that before 2030. [Construction of] one of those gigawatts is starting over the next 12 months.”

Venn added that the cost of construction relating to the 3GW of renewable energy would total around R75 billion.

He explained that, based on Eskom’s energy availability factor data, South Africa needs to build 50GW of renewable energy projects in addition to the existing coal fleet by 2035 to end load-shedding.

“So without decommissioning any coal, we need to build an additional 50GW of renewable energy to keep the lights on if you look at Eskom’s availability factors,” he said.

Source: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/456795-south-africa-needs-r1-25-trillion-to-stop-load-shedding.html?utm_source=newsletter