Will Eskom hold us back forever?
The local economy is in a mess and has been for some time. The joke during lock down was that “at least we don’t have load shedding” and as soon as we opened the economy slightly, load shedding began.
But now load shedding is not due to defective or wet coal or other silly reasons; Eskom’s new leadership has decided to stop kicking the maintenance can down the road and are now doing deep maintenance of the power stations, and fixing up the new ones. Deep maintenance means taking the power station right off grid and fixing it properly. The best time to do this was the last 30 years, but the second-best time is now. Deep maintenance is happening and will only be complete in 2022. Hopefully our economy is going full steam ahead by then.
A year ago I joked that if the United Nations wanted to greatly reduce coal emissions and global warming, they should buy Eskom, one of the world’s greatest polluters, and force them to go into sustainable energy creation, closing down the coal power stations. We do, after all, have the world’s second-best solar power site in the northern Cape, just after the Sahara. The industrial revolution in England was born on coal power and steam and now has only two coal power stations left and will have none in five years’ time. And we have the sunshine.
My joke has become reality. The world’s organisations have agreed to refinance Eskom’s debt if they phase out their coal power stations. This may sound like a pipe dream, but huge progress has been made. As usual, with ANC leadership, the process is too long and painfully slow. But progress there is, not that you would hear this in the daily news feeds. Good news does not sell.
Eskom is in the process of being unbundled which will make electricity more affordable in the future. Municipalities have had their assets frozen until they pay their Eskom debt. Private companies are lining up to invest in greener power generation. All great for the economy for the next decade or so.
JP Landman has come to the rescue to substantiate my note with dates, facts and figures. Attached is JP’s note, good reading as always.
Keep safe.