Karpowerships have been ruled out as an emergency option to help stabilise the grid as the country totters on 50 days without load shedding having not resorted to using the expensive source.
This was the opinion of participants at a round-table discussion yesterday on South Africa’s electrification programme as part of the government’s ongoing activities to mark 30 years of democracy noted.
Turkish Karpowership group was named a preferred bidder in government's Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme to provide over 1 200MW of power from floating gas-power vessels located at three of South Africa's ports – Richards Bay, Saldanha and Coega - at a handsome cost of nearly R200 billion over a 20-year period.
In response from journalists, energy engineer Chris Yelland said the continuous provision of electricity over the past weeks was proof that South Africa's energy crisis was not so long term that it needed an expensive long-term emergency solution.
Yelland said Kapowerships should not ever have been on the table as the emergency was not meant to be long term, particularly as everything about the Karpowerships was imported and consequently expensive.
“We don’t have load shedding at the moment. Yes we had a crises, but it was not supposed to be a 20-year crises. So signing a 20-year contract with Karpowerships for emergency power was plain wrong,” Yelland said.
“Everything about the Karpowerships was imported. The liquified natural gas is imported. The ships themselves. The whole lot is imported, but it is over now. Eskom has taken away their grid access and they would have to apply for it like everyone else.”
Eskom's Media desk, in response to enquiries, said that the utility had nothing to do with the Karpowerships.
“Eskom has not concluded Power Purchase Agreements in Karpowership,” Eskom said.
“We therefore don’t purchase power from Karpowership. There is therefore no need for discussions with DMRE and Eskom with regards to Karpowership.”
At the same event, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) called for a review and remodelling of the indigent register as the free basic electricity provision of 50 kilowatt hour (Kwh) monthly allocation was insufficient for the right recipients. But is also open to abuse as about 75% of the more than 2.1 million people registered as indigent did not receive the benefit.
Salga’s head of energy Nhlanhla Ngidi said of the about 3 million households registered to receive free basic electricity, about 2.1 million were identified as indigent, but less than half of them actually received the benefit.
He said the current indigent register was outdated and did not update information on the recipients, whether a household had someone employed by the government or elsewhere which meant it unfairly benefited from the FBE programme, a double-whammy for Eskom and municipalities as communities also bypassed electricity meters, curtailing revenue.
“We need to relook at the indigent registers where more than half of them are not indigent people,” Ngidi said.
“They are stealing the electricity from the poor people. We have assessed and seen that some of the registers are outdated, the people there are earning above the income level that qualifies the household for free electricity.”
He also argued that the registers of indigent households, which were used by municipalities to distribute the benefit, were out of date, resulting in intended beneficiaries being bypassed while those with means to pay were continuing to enjoy the benefit.
Yelland supported this saying there was need to review the indigent registers to ensure profiles were what they were said to be, confirming that 75% of rightful recipients did not receive the benefit.
Eskom’s Pozisa Njezula said Eskom had resorted to rolling out microgrids at the Swartkop dam, in the Northern Cape, due to the challenges wrought by far-flung areas in accessibility and cost of electrification for a smaller population.
Eskom has since launched two more microgrids at Nomalengena Village, in the Eastern Cape, and Noenieput, also in the Northern Cape.
Njezula said Eskom though was not immune to crime and extortion at its sites with many sites’ progress hampered by theft and delays, Eskom workers needed to be protected when going to some sites.
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