Since the publication of the draft Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) 2023 on January 4, there has been debate about the relevance of the plan in SA’s fast-changing energy landscape.
Should the government still be planning as if the state, through Eskom, will continue to be a major player in electricity supply 20 or 30 years from now?
But this is by no means the only critique that has been levelled at the plan which has been called, at best, unambitious, and at worst a complete failure for not adequately addressing the country’s energy crisis.
While the industry tries to make sense of the plan, there is broad consensus that the deadline to submit comments on the plan must be extended.
The department of mineral resources & energy (DMRE) has been engaging with the media, industry and the broader public through virtual information sessions, but these are a poor substitute for formal public hearings — which will not take place according to the current IRP 2023 consultation timeline.
At the first of two public information sessions hosted by the DMRE last week, many questions were left unanswered. The department said it would respond to these questions in writing and publish these on its website, but this has not happened yet.
The department has already received several requests for the February 23 deadline to be extended, director-general Jacob Mbele told the members of “technology agnostic” SA National Energy Association (Sanea) this week.
At its discussion on the IRP 2023, Sanea repeated the call, asking Mbele to extend the deadline.
The DMRE has indicated that it would consider these requests, but with the deadline only a month away it needs to make a decision soon.
Meanwhile, in the interest of transparency, the department also needs to publish more detailed information about the assumptions it used and how it arrived at the scenarios presented in the plan.
It is not clear, for example, why modelling done for the period from 2030 to 2050 includes a large share of concentrated solar power (CSP) generation in its renewables led scenario, rather than assuming all solar power will come from solar photovoltaic cells (PV) — the cheaper alternative.
According to the SA solar PV association (SAPVIA), which participated in the session hosted by Sanea, the inclusion of up to 34,000MW of capacity from CSP could be the reason the IRP modelling showed that a renewable energy only pathway had the highest cost compared to other pathways such as building nuclear power stations or new coal-fired power stations.
Perhaps the greatest flaw of the IRP 2023, as pointed out by some of the members of Sanea, is that it assumes business as usual for the energy sector for the next three decades. The plan cannot ignore the fact that the state will likely to play a smaller role in electricity generation. Instead, and the IRP should recognise this and the fact that more planning is needed around how Eskom can better provide ancillary services such as grid access and electricity trading platforms.
The IRP cannot, and should not, decide the policy and regulatory changes that are needed to prepare for a liberalised energy market and a supply mix that will increasingly feature more renewables.
Any plan that will commit SA to expensive technologies for decades to come, when there are better alternatives available, will be disastrous for the country.
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