A decision by Eskom, supported by the board, to delay the decommissioning of some of its older coal-fired power stations would not “make or break” SA’s ability to achieve its international climate commitments, according to climate advisers to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Eskom announced recently it would delay the decommissioning of Camden, Hendrina and Grootvlei power stations to 2030. Previous decommissioning schedules provided for the Grootvlei and Camden power stations to be fully decommissioned by 2025 and Hendrina by 2026.
This created some uncertainty over whether SA would still be able to meet its emission reduction targets given that the electricity sector accounts for about 70% of SA’s total emissions.
However, according to Dr Crispian Olver, executive director of the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), which advises the government on the just transition, they agreed it was “impossible to shut down coal power stations in the middle of a power crisis”.
Speaking at the International Finance Corporation’s (a member of the World Bank) forum on sustainable finance in SA in Johannesburg Monday, Olver said the PCC was looking at what these delays in decommissioning would mean for SA’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.
According to its most recent NDCs the country has expressed the ambition of reducing emissions to a target range of 350-million tonnes to 420-million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions — a reduction of about 20%-33% from current levels.
Failing to achieve this target could make it more difficult for SA to access international finance to implement the country’s just transition plans, which include expanding and upgrading the electricity transmission system to allow for more renewable energy to be connected to the grid.
SA also needs access to several billion rand in finance to ultimately repurpose coal-fired power stations to protect jobs that would otherwise be lost when these plants get decommissioned.
Pushing the decommissioning of these three power stations out by four to five years would “not collapse SA’s climate commitments”, Olver said.
The delayed shutdown would also not alone be significant enough for SA to breach its NDC targets but reaching the 2030 range would be challenging, he said.
The PCC was preparing a report on the matter that will be published in the next few months, Olver said.
Business Day previously reported that, according to Eskom, Camden, Hendrina and Grootvlei power stations were among the smallest and least emitting stations in coal fleet. Eskom’s head of generation Bheki Nxumalo said shutting down these smaller stations — which have already been partially decommissioned — would contribute less to lowering Eskom’s overall emissions than other interventions that could be implemented across the rest of the fleet.
Delaying the shutdown of these power stations suited the recommendations the PCC had made after Komati power station in Mpumalanga was shut down in 2022, said Olver.
Eskom has admitted the decommissioning of Komati was not properly planned and executed.
A report by the PCC on the lessons learnt from the Komati shutdown found the process of creating new opportunities through repowering (such as installing renewable energy capacity) and repurposing (using the land and infrastructure around the power station to start new projects such as skills training or, in the case of Komati, a manufacturing business for mobile microgrids) started too late.
Olver said the “sequencing” of the decommissioning, repowering and repurposing of Komati was “totally back to front”.
“We want to reverse that [with the decommissioning of other plants.”
Conducting proper consultations with workers and communities, and doing the repurposing and repowering at plants such as Hendrina, Camden and Grootvlei before they are shut down, would already have delayed their decommissioning by four to five years, said Olver.
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