Green light turns to red: Eskom breaches electricity reserve margin

A briefing by Eskom to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Energy revealed that, for the first time, South Africa's electricity reserve margin has gone into deficit. 

International best practice recommends a reserve margin of approximately 15%. Since 2009, South Africa has been operating on a margin of 11.6%. 

The current 9 Terrawatt hours breach of the reserve margin is significant. The shortfall is equivalent to 1000 MW - the amount of electricity consumed by a city like Cape Town over the course of one year.

Eskom is now using diesel-fired gas turbines to keep the lights on. This is unsustainable as it is incredibly expensive. 

Projections from 2010 suggested that 2012 would be a critical period in managing the demand-supply shortfall. These projections, however, assumed that the Medupi and Kusile power stations were on track to come on stream in 2012. 

In reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question, which sought answers as to why the Medupi project has been delayed, Eskom now assures us that the 794 MW Medupi capacity will come on stream in the second half of 2013. The 800MW from Kusile will come on stream by mid-2014. 

The recommissioning of Grootvlei, Camden and Komatie power stations may help to bring relief to seriously strained generation capacity in the short run. 

It is, however, a great pity that South Africans must now suffer as a result of government's sluggish response to the 1998 White Paper, which warned of the necessity to address the infrastructure maintenance backlog and the urgency of building new generation capacity.

Statement issued by David Ross MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Energy, March 23 2012

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter