South Africa needs 53 GW of renewable energy
South Africa: Eskom states that South Africa will need around 53 GW of new additional generation capacity from renewable sources over the next decade.
Image source: ESI Africa
South Africa: Eskom states that South Africa will need around 53 GW of new additional generation capacity from renewable sources over the next decade.
The state electricity utility revealed this figure during the Transmission Development Plan Public (TDP) Forum, which is a consultative process where industry, business, local government and infrastructure development partners talk about the country’s long-term development plan for the electricity transmission system.
The TDP Forum is held annually as part of Eskom’s transmission license requirements issued by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), which requires Eskom to publish a TDP yearly.
This 53 GW figure includes the country’s current generational capacity deficit, which Eskom puts at somewhere between 4,000 MW and 6,000 MW.
This number is a significant revision from that of the TDP of 2021, which based its assumptions for new generational capacity on the Integrated Resources Plan of 2019 (IRP2019). That figure proposed that around 30 GW of new capacity would be needed by 2030.
Accommodating this new figure, and assuming obstacles to implementing the roll-out plan are removed, 14,200 km of extra-high voltage lines and 170 additional transformers would have to be added to the transmission infrastructure by 2032.
Source: ESI Africa
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