De Ruyter says what many South Africans are thinking out loud: Solutions for energy crisis will be found outside of government

20 April 2022 

The frustration evident at Eskom's media briefing on load shedding this week confirms what many people have already known for a long time: Government is simply not committed to ensuring reliable power supply, which is required for economic growth.

Over the past few years, the FF Plus has repeatedly pointed out that businesses, households, schools and even municipalities must devise plans for meeting their own electricity needs.

If the government contributes anything to what it inherited from the previous dispensation, it should be considered a bonus. The most valuable step that the government has the power to take is to deregulate the electricity market and to cut the red tape.

Thousands of households and businesses have become partially or completely independent of Eskom over the past few years. This was predominantly achieved by installing solar panels on roofs, either by means of off-grid or grid-tied units.

The former requires expensive battery packs and surplus power (after consumption and batteries are fully charged) is lost. The latter is significantly cheaper and any surplus power generated contributes to the national power grid.

The snag with grid-tied units, however, is that they can only work when there is power available on the grid. In other words, during load shedding all power generated in this way is lost.

Hybrid systems with storage capacity, but which are still connected to the grid, are becoming more popular.

Private storage of power is expensive, but makes financial sense when weighed up against the loss of production.

The most prominent restriction on households wanting to install their own systems is financing. At present, a grid-tied system for domestic use will cost approximately R50 000, while adding storage will double the amount, at the very least.

Most households must compare these amounts to their monthly electricity bill and affordability.

Banks can make a positive contribution by including financing for power systems in their mainstream services, like vehicle financing. Municipalities could even act as agents for banks by pre-approving account holders with good payment histories and collecting repayments through utility bills.

Such a financing structure could stabilise power supply to account holders and make municipalities less dependent on Eskom, while stimulating banks' core business activities.

The FF Plus is convinced that thousands of producer-consumers of power can, in addition to large plants and independent power suppliers, make a significant contribution to new generating capacity.

Government cannot be relied upon, as De Ruyter essentially indicated.

Issued by Wynand Boshoff, FF Plus MP and chief spokesperson: Mineral Resources and Energy, 20 April 2022