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Despite two decades of rolling blackouts and national energy scandals, stimulation in the renewables sector might just be the turning point for Africa’s most developed economy.
South Africa is in the throws of an energy crisis which has been unfolding for almost twenty years now.
The country’s national electricity grid, which comes predominantly from coal power stations, has been severely hindered through aging infrastructure, gross mismanagement, and continuous allegations of corruption within the ranks of the national energy supplier, ESKOM.
As early as 1998, there were warnings of problems within the infrastructure which went unheeded. Then, in 2007, the grid was unable to supply enough electricity to meet the demands of the country and for the first time ESKOM handed out a series of rolling blackouts.
These blackouts, now known as ‘load shedding’, have plagued the country ever since.
The entire economy has been severely impacted as basic services, industries, and companies essentially have to shut down for upwards of ten hours at a time on occasions. Some estimates suggest that ‘load shedding’ has cost the South African economy £11 billion since it began in 2007, with the worst bout of power cuts coming in 2022.
Despite the dire straits that South Africa’s energy infrastructure is in, recently there has been an increased emphasis on the need to transition to sustained, renewable energy sources. In this sense, some reports suggest that renewables might be the answer to the country’s energy woes whilst simultaneously transitioning the country to a more sustainable economy with a lower CO2 output.
