Private power to the rescue, what will happen to Eskom?

In as little as two years, Eskom could become the minority supplier of South African electricity, overtaken by other suppliers, including big companies and rooftop solar installations.

That’s the prediction by Rand Merchant Bank/Morgan Stanley, revealed by Anchor Capital’s Peter Armitage in a recent webinar.

Here’s what 2025 power supply looks like

By 2025, Eskom will produce 25.17GW, because of its low energy availability factor (EAF), which hovers around 53%, because of planned and unplanned maintenance and unit breakdowns at power stations.

In the projection of electricity supply and demand to 2030 and beyond, the RMB/MS assessment is that, by 2025, “other supply” of power, which ranges from imports to independent power producers, to roof-top solar, as well as small amounts of imported electricity, will account for 26.82GW.

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Armitage said the chart showed that load shedding “is giving rise to opportunities” and that “private investment is happening”.

“The private sector, if indeed the government does allow them to contribute, as they’re indicating… and there has been massive spending coming through.”

He said that Anglo-American, for example, would be producing 5GW of power in the next few years. There would be financing opportunities for banks for up to R1 trillion in power production – roughly one-seventh of the country’s Gross Domestic product (GDP).

Armitage concluded: “So for every negative there is a positive.

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The private sector is being allowed to play a role and when that’s unleashed I think you’re going to see a dramatically better situation.”

The RMB/MS assessment revealed that load shedding would still be with us in 2025, because the power supply deficit would be around 400MW.

Meanwhile, Eskom announced yesterday that stage 6 load shedding would be back following a slight reprieve. Eskom ramped up to stage 6 from 4pm.

At noon yesterday, the power utility announced that the pattern of stage 6 would be repeated daily from 4pm to 5am until further notice.