Mark Swilling, chair of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and commissioner of the National Planning Commission (NPC), which has called for an emergency energy plan to end load-shedding in two years, says the consequences of not doing so don't bear thinking about.
“If we haven't put at least 10,000MW of new generation onto the grid in 24 months we will have a minimum of stage 4 to stage 6 load-shedding almost on a permanent basis.
“Stage 4 load-shedding costs the economy R1bn a day. That has economic consequences which are too ghastly to contemplate.”
While adding 10,000MW of solar and wind energy to the grid in the next two years is technically and financially possible, Swilling says it won't happen without cutting the red tape that has been holding up the rollout of renewables, scrapping or simplifying regulatory processes and temporarily suspending local content requirements.
The only person who can make this happen is President Cyril Ramaphosa. But he needs additional powers to intervene, which is why the NPC has also called for the declaration of a national energy emergency that would empower him to take the lead in addressing the crisis.
“This [energy crisis] is like a declaration of war by a foreign power, and we need war measures to remove the obstacles to an accelerated rollout of renewable energy,” says Swilling, who is also a professor at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University.
There is scepticism about how quickly the interventions the NPC has called for will happen.
At a recent press conference public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said the government was “deliberating” on declaring an energy emergency. Swilling agrees that this is a word that makes those who want more urgency quail.
“The problem with energy is that you need collaboration across many different ministries,” he says.
He concedes that this is a recipe for endless delay.
What’s different this time, he believes, is the president’s weekly newsletter on Monday acknowledging that “we need to do more and do so with the utmost urgency”.
This [energy crisis] is like a declaration of war by a foreign power, and we need war measures to remove the obstacles to an accelerated rollout of renewable energy
“So we may be looking at the president leading from the front in an appropriate way,” says Swilling.
Another challenge will be getting the unions, which are committed to coal and opposed to renewables, to back the emergency energy plan.
“It has little chance of happening without the buy-in of the unions. The unions are critical.”
But the country doesn’t have time for endless consultation, he says.
“We can’t afford any delay. We can’t continue just having dialogues without any action.”
He believes some union leaders understand there is more to gain from an energy transition than trying to hang on to an industry that is dying, “but we also know that there’s lots of factional politics, and that plays a role in the way in which union politics is unfolding. These are realities we have to face.”
He says researchers have found that workers understand that the coal mines and coal fired power stations are going to start closing.
But they haven’t been shown the “significant” job-creating potential of the alternative, he says.
“After all, we’ve built 6.2GW of renewables and we’ve created 50,000 jobs in those projects.”
One of the aspects of the emergency plan he thinks unions may resist is the suspension of the local content requirement.
“They will have to be shown that they have more to gain from making sure we get out of our energy crisis and stop destroying our economy than digging in their heels to defend a dying industry.”
Swilling says the elements of the emergency plan are in place.
“You have 2.8GW approved in bid window 5 and 2.5GW ready for approval in bid window 6, although that still has to reach closure.
“You have 8GW of shovel ready projects in terms of the 100MW concession and 600-700MW, excluding the Karpowerships, from the emergency (power procurement) round.
“That gives you 14GW of shovel-ready projects ready to roll. And they are not funded off the fiscus; they’re funded by the private sector.”
If the national transmission company, which is ready to be set up and run with a proper balance sheet and not too much debt, is established quickly, the emergency energy plan can roll, he says.
What seems to be missing, however, is an effective security strategy.
Swilling concedes that the biggest threat to the plan is the absence of law enforcement.
“Without law enforcement nothing will work. If we don't return to a rules-based society that respects law and order our whole society is going down the tubes.”
The absence of law enforcement is especially serious in the energy sector, he says, because energy, and Eskom in particular, is contested terrain.
“State capture hasn’t ended in Eskom; it continues.”
Without law enforcement nothing will work. If we don't return to a rules-based society that respects law and order our whole society is going down the tubes
If unions, civil society, business and government don't rally around the defence of Eskom and energy infrastructure, including renewable energy projects and the 1,500km of transmission cables that will need to be built every year, there will be no end to the energy crisis, he says.
“The best emergency energy plan will not deliver without law enforcement.”
The large-scale investments required to generate 10,000MW of renewable energy in two years, let alone 26,000MW by 2030 as envisaged in the government's Integrated Resource Plan, will not be made if projects are being sabotaged, hit by criminal syndicates or facing the likelihood of being destroyed in another insurrection.
“The DBSA is in the business of building infrastructure but we have to deal with construction mafias, a coal mafia, an oil mafia, a maintenance mafia. A whole range of mafias who can get very well organised to protect their interests by sabotaging the interests of the nation.
“We need up-to-scratch security forces and a prosecuting agency that can do the job.”
He agrees that the country can’t wait for that to be sorted out before dealing with load-shedding, but concedes that without effective law enforcement the 10,000MW of renewable energy needed within two years to end load-shedding will not happen.
“If the infrastructure continues to be stolen, sabotaged, destroyed and ripped off by organised criminal gangs the whole programme will be compromised,” he says.
“We'll be like the hamster on the wheel trying to run faster and faster and staying in the same place.”
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