- South Africa plans to add 30GW of new genertaion to the grid leading up to 2029.
- Part of that will be funded by the approved budget of the board of R112 billion for the next five years.
- The National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) was officially launched yesterday at Eskom’s Megawatt Park by Chairperson Priscillah Mabelane.
The NTCSA is one of Eskom’s legal separations of three entities, namely generation, distribution and transmission. The unbundling was first announced in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2019 State of the Nation Address. The unbundling was finalised on 1st July 2024 paving the way for the separate entity to begin independent operations.
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“Despite being a newly formed entity, the NTCSA has already made substantial progress in implementing its strategy. We have approved R112 billion for TDP investments in the next 5 years. Recognise that collaboration and public-private partnerships are critical to ensure that we achieve the top bill for TDP investment in the 53 000 mw of new generation connection required over the next decade. As communicated by Mr. Skippers, the ministry and the NTCSA are working together on ITP solutions to attract additional private sector funding which will not impact NTCSA’s balance sheet,” said NTCSA chairperson Priscillah Mabelane.
At the launch the issue over tariff reform was discussed.
“This is very essential work that needs to be done, they had work done late last year. NERSA around what they refer to as activity-based costing and restructuring the tariff. There were some challenges along the way and they’ve had to go back to the drawing board so the question of restructuring the tariff I don’t think it’s a debate. I think it’s just around getting on with it and so we will be working closely with NERSA and other stakeholders to get that done,” says Segomoco Scheppers, NTCSA interim CEO
The country needs to add more than 1500 km of new transmission lines annually over the next ten years. This is to ensure transmission capacity to accommodate more than 50 GW of new generation power which will mainly come from intermittent renewable energy (wind and solar projects). Currently, Eskom’s transmission division is adding 300 km of new power lines annually. In the last ten years, only 4 347 km of new powerlines were added.
Another challenge is transformer capacity. More than 122 600 MVA transformation capacity would have to be added, representing 77% of Eskom’s current installed base of just over 160 000 MVA. In the last ten years, only 19 060 MVA has been added to the grid infrastructure.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
