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There was an enormous summit for the Southern African Growth Group (SADC) over the previous weekend in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was the 44th version of this summit, with heads of state for 13 out of the 16 member states attending.
The SADC web site 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 imaginative and prescient of sustainable and equitable financial progress shall be hampered by the area’s dire electrical energy state of affairs. In Half 2 of this collection, we are going to check out the present state of electrical energy provide for these residents which are linked to the respective member states’ nationwide grids. Right here we are going to give attention to quite a few nations that face perennial electrical energy rationing, infamously often called load-shedding. For a take a look at the present degree of entry to electrical energy, or reasonably a take a look at the share of residents that aren’t linked to the nationwide grids of SADC member States, you could find Half 1 of this collection right here.
12 nations in Southern Africa are a part of the Southern African Energy Pool (SAPP). The SAPP is essentially the most lively energy pool in Africa. The entire put in era capability within the area is 80 GW. The height demand within the area is 57 GW, nevertheless, the out there capability is simply 48 GW in keeping with the figures from the SAPP, leaving an enormous electrical energy era shortfall. Certainly meaning there must be some urgency round fixing this large era shortfall.
Essentially the most affected member states are South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the place residents face common electrical energy rationing cycles often called load-shedding. The electrical energy era combine within the Southern African Energy Pool is dominated by coal. Coal’s share is at 59% (principally from South Africa and locations like Zimbabwe), adopted by hydro at 24%, photo voltaic PV at 4%, distillate at 3.8%, then wind and nuclear (South Africa) at 3%, and open cycle gasoline generators at 2%.
9 nations are presently interconnected on the transmission degree, with 3 nations not but linked to the SAPP grid. Malawi is linked by means of the Mozambique – Malawi Interconnector and Tanzania is being linked by means of the Zambia – Tanzania Interconnector, which is able to result in interconnection of SAPP and the East African Energy Pool as Tanzania can also be being linked to Kenya. Angola shall be linked to Namibia, DRC, and Zambia.
A take a look at the era and demand knowledge exhibits that there’s an pressing must speed up new interconnections in addition to broaden present interconnection capability to facilitate growth of regional commerce. There are some plans round this, and one would assume these must be greater up the agenda for these sorts of summits, however it doesn’t appear to be the case.
The persistent load-shedding points plaguing South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe may very well be solved by unlocking the total potential of the Southern African Energy Pool in addition to the East African Energy Pool as soon as it’s absolutely activated. Because of this it’s essential to prioritize and speed up deliberate interconnections between Tanzania and Zambia in addition to Angola’s to Namibia, DRC, and Zambia.
Taking a look at desk under from SAPP, Angola had an extra capability of round 2.4 GW. A few of this may very well be taken up by different members of the SAPP as required to alleviate a number of the shortfalls.
South Africa appears to be getting round to addressing the era shortfall. Eskom just lately introduced 4 months of uninterrupted energy provide since 26 March 2024, together with 87 days of fixed provide all through the winter interval. The suspension of load-shedding in South Africa has introduced some reduction to properties and enterprise that have been dealing with spiraling prices from utilizing various sources comparable to diesel backup mills. Eskom reached one other vital milestone on 23 July 2024 by reaching 35,000 MW of obtainable capability, with a night peak demand of 30,740 MW. This degree of obtainable capability has not been seen for six years, particularly since 16 July 2018. This achievement is attributed to lowered unplanned outages, which have dropped to 9,238 MW. Moreover, Eskom achieved a mean Power Availability Issue (EAF) of 70% over the previous seven days.
Eskom provides that its “Generation Recovery Plan” continues to ship efficiencies, with an approximate R9.09 billion discount in Open-Cycle Gasoline Generators (OCGTs) diesel expenditure from 1 April 2024 to 25 July 2024, in comparison with the identical interval final yr. Eskom had been spending some huge cash on diesel. It’s good to see that rooftop photo voltaic is beginning to contribute a substantial portion of South Africa’s electrical energy era combine throughout daytime hours.
The state of affairs shouldn’t be 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 aspect (Kariba South), the hydropower plant now has an put in era capability of 1,050 MW. On the Zambian aspect (Kariba North), there may be now an put in era capability of 1,080 MW, so due to this fact the dam has a mixed capability of two,130 MW. The dam is a serious vacationer attraction for the nation, second solely to Victoria Falls. Lake Kariba can also be now house to the world’s best reservoir fishery, and due to this fact a supply of employment for the artisanal fishing business.
The large downside is that there’s a severe drought presently affecting quite a few nations in southern Africa. Some stories say that is the worst drought in over 100 years. The issue is that these droughts have gotten too frequent and rising in severity. The Kariba Dam’s water ranges are extraordinarily low in the intervening time on account of these droughts, as illustrated under:
The low ranges have pressured the Zambezi River Authority to limit electrical energy era from Kariba Dam. Zimbabwe now has an put in capability of about 2,500 MW. Nonetheless, because of the low water ranges in Kariba, ZPC, the nationwide electrical energy era firm, has been pressured to scale back era at Kariba to solely 215MW out of 1,050MW! Together with depressed era at some previous coal energy crops, the entire era capability has been hovering at round 1,300MW. With demand reaching near 2,000 MW, Zimbabwe has been pressured to implement extreme electrical energy rationing cycles, which imply most residents don’t have electrical energy from about 6am to 9pm day by day.
In Zambia, the put in nationwide era capability stands at round 3,500 MW in comparison with a peak nationwide demand of roughly 2,300MW. Nonetheless, because of restricted era at Kariba North in addition to different crops being out for scheduled upkeep, out there era capability is hovering round 890MW, forcing the utility firm to extend load-shedding to 17 hours a day!
If the area’s leaders have been listening to world developments, they’d know that there has by no means been a greater time to do that. Plenty of progress has been made within the photo voltaic and stationary vitality storage segments with rising market shares in plenty of nations within the developed world. The unimaginable ramp-up of manufacturing capability in these sectors, in addition to technological developments over the previous decade, helped unlock efficiencies in key areas, leading to unimaginable worth drops in the price of manufacturing of all of the important elements. This has resulted in shoppers now gaining access to photo voltaic panels and batteries at costs decrease than ever.
Photo voltaic panel costs are so low now that we now hear stories that it’s cheaper to purchase photo voltaic panels and use them to assemble fences in some locations in Europe than to make use of conventional fencing materials! A fence that additionally generates clear electrical energy — how cool is that? You realize what can be cooler? Utilizing all this PV and battery storage to energy distributed microgrids utilizing lots of of hundreds of rooftops and carparks throughout these nations to enhance the provision from present utility-scale era crops. The drastic drop in costs of photo voltaic panels and batteries imply that so much much less cash is required to set all this up now in all these nations than ever earlier than.
South Africa confirmed us simply how rapidly new era capability might be added from rooftop photo voltaic. South African properties and companies have added 3,526 MW of rooftop photo voltaic in simply two years! It’s simply great to see how briskly electrical energy era capability might be added from rooftop photo voltaic. In line with knowledge from Eskom, there have been about 2,264.5 MW of rooftop photo voltaic PV put in in South Africa as of July 2022. In line with Eskom’s newest replace, South African properties and companies have now put in 5,790.5 MW of photo voltaic PV.
Different sources might be thought-about as properly so as to add to the era mixture of SADC member nations. We simply want the regional leaders to point out a bit extra urgency. Here’s a abstract of the outcomes of the Summit. Doesn’t appear like there was a transparent and pressing name to handle the electrical energy disaster. The entire different themes from the summit, comparable to “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialised SADC,” must be backed up by a steady electrical energy setting. For SADC to industrialize, it should prioritize fixing this electrical energy disaster.
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