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reasonsforhope · 8 months ago

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African poverty is partly a consequence of energy poverty. In every other continent the vast majority of people have access to electricity. In Africa 600m people, 43% of the total, cannot readily light their homes or charge their phones. And those who nominally have grid electricity find it as reliable as a Scottish summer. More than three-quarters of African firms experience outages; two-fifths say electricity is the main constraint on their business.

If other sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed power as reliable as South Africa’s from 1995 to 2007, then the continent’s rate of real GDP growth per person would have been two percentage points higher, more than doubling the actual rate, according to one academic paper. Since then South Africa has also had erratic electricity. So-called “load-shedding” is probably the main reason why the economy has shrunk in four of the past eight quarters.

Solar power is increasingly seen as the solution. Last year Africa installed a record amount of photovoltaic (PV) capacity (though this still made up just 1% of the total added worldwide), notes the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), a trade group. Globally most solar PV is built by utilities, but in Africa 65% of new capacity over the past two years has come from large firms contracting directly with developers. These deals are part of a decentralised revolution that could be of huge benefit to African economies.

Ground zero for the revolution is South Africa. Last year saw a record number of blackouts imposed by Eskom, the state-run utility, whose dysfunctional coal-fired power stations regularly break down or operate at far below capacity. Fortunately, as load-shedding was peaking, the costs of solar systems were plummeting.

Between 2019 and 2023 the cost of panels fell by 15%, having already declined by almost 90% in the 2010s. Meanwhile battery storage systems now cost about half as much as five years ago. Industrial users pay 20-40% less per unit when buying electricity from private project developers than on the cheapest Eskom tariff.

In the past two calendar years the amount of solar capacity in South Africa rose from 2.8GW to 7.8GW, notes AFSIA, excluding that installed on the roofs of suburban homes. All together South Africa’s solar capacity could now be almost a fifth of that of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations (albeit those still have a higher “capacity factor”, or ability to produce electricity around the clock). The growth of solar is a key reason why there has been less load-shedding in 2024...

Over the past decade the number of startups providing “distributed renewable energy” (DRE) has grown at a clip. Industry estimates suggest that more than 400m Africans get electricity from solar home systems and that more than ten times as many “mini-grids”, most of which use solar, were built in 2016-20 than in the preceding five years. In Kenya DRE firms employ more than six times as many people as the largest utility. In Nigeria they have created almost as many jobs as the oil and gas industry.

“The future is an extremely distributed system to an extent that people haven’t fully grasped,” argues Matthew Tilleard of CrossBoundary Group, a firm whose customers range from large businesses to hitherto unconnected consumers. “It’s going to happen here in Africa first and most consequentially.”

Ignite, which operates in nine African countries, has products that include a basic panel that powers three light bulbs and a phone charger, as well as solar-powered irrigation pumps, stoves and internet routers, and industrial systems. Customers use mobile money to “unlock” a pay-as-you-go meter.

Yariv Cohen, Ignite’s CEO, reckons that the typical $3 per month spent by consumers is less than what they previously paid for kerosene and at phone-charging kiosks. He describes how farmers are more productive because they do not have to get home before dark and children are getting better test scores because they study under bulbs. One family in Rwanda used to keep their two cows in their house because they feared rustlers might come in the dark; now the cattle snooze al fresco under an outside lamp and the family gets more sleep.

...That is one eye-catching aspect of Africa’s solar revolution. But most of the continent is undergoing a more subtle—and significant—experiment in decentralised, commercially driven solar power. It is a trend that could both transform African economies and offer lessons to the rest of the world."

-via The Economist, June 18, 2024. Paragraph breaks added.

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missmouse25 · 1 month ago

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If anyone is wondering how we’re doing in South Africa

Government implemented stage 6 load shedding out of the blue so yeah… we’re doing great thanks for asking

#it was on stage 3 like two days ago #then nothing for a day #and now stage 6 #what the poes #ThatKindaVibe

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andmaybegayer · 6 months ago

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Hi! What did you mean by load-shedding in the solar panel post?

South Africa has, on-and-off since 2007 and more or less continuously since 2020, not been able to generate enough power to meet demand. As a result, the power utility enacts load-shedding, which is rolling blackouts. This varies usually between 2-8 hours without power per day, in 2-4 hour blocks, depending on how bad it is, scheduled by area.

(Actually since the end of March 2024 there hasn't been any load-shedding, thanks to a confluence of various repairs and efficiency improvements that have happened in the last few years, plus the increase in private solar and private batteries for load-shifting, but that's very recent.)

#ask #looksmokin

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historyhermann · 1 year ago

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Supa Team 4 Season 2 Spoiler-Filled Review

Supa Team 4 is a computer-generated superhero action-comedy series. Malenga Mulendema is the series creator and co-executive producer. Trigger Fish Animation Studios, known for the recent animated series Kiya and the Kimoja Heroes, and Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, and various television specials and films. The first season was released in July 2023. Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback…

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beardedmrbean · 7 months ago

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The man who had been chief engineer at South Africa’s state-owned passenger rail company has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for faking his qualifications.

Once hailed for his successful career, Daniel Mthimkhulu was head of engineering at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) for five years - earning an annual salary of about 2.8m rand ($156,000; £119,000).

On his CV, the 49-year-old claimed to have had several mechanical engineering qualifications, including a degree from South Africa’s respected Witwatersrand University as well as a doctorate from a German university.

However, the court in Johannesburg heard that he had only completed his high-school education.

“The sentence sends a strong message that the perpetrators of white-collar crime will not go unpunished," said Phindi Mjonondwane, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Damning report exposes rampant SA corruption

Load-shedding, poor management, corruption and sabotage

Mthimkhulu was arrested in July 2015 shortly after his web of lies began to unravel.

He had started working at Prasa 15 years earlier, shooting up the ranks to become chief engineer, thanks to his fake qualifications.

The court also heard how he had forged a job offer letter from a German company, which encouraged Prasa to increase his salary so the agency would not lose him.

He was also at the forefront of a 600m rand deal to buy dozens of new trains from Spain, but they could not be used in South Africa as they were too high.

“The court took into account the seriousness and prevalence of fraud, the significant financial loss to Prasa and Mthimkhulu’s betrayal of his employer’s trust," Ms Mjonondwane said.

In an interview from 2019 with local broadcaster eNCA, Mthimkhulu admitted that he did not have a PhD.

"I failed to correct the perception that I have it. I just became comfortable with the title. I did not foresee any damages as a result of this,” he said.

Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya, the head of South Africa’s elite Hawks police unit that helped bring the prosecution, also welcomed the sentence.

“This should serve as a lesson to would be fraudsters that crime doesn’t pay," he said.

The Hawks said this was a case linked to "state capture", a term used in South Africa to describe widespread corruption that occurred under Jacob Zuma when he was president from 2009 until 2018.

Mthimkhulu is reportedly planning to appeal.

#nunyas news #points for boldness at least

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thehollowwriter · 1 year ago

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Wide awake because of stupid fucking loadshedding omg. It's midnight and there's absolutely no power and I'm so hot and uncomfortable. For those wondering what loadshedding is:

"South Africa's energy crisis or load shedding is an ongoing period of widespread national blackouts of electricity supply. It began in the later months of 2007 towards the end of Thabo Mbeki's second term as president, and continues to the present." -Wikipedia (I'm too tired to look elsewhere)

There are multiple stages and the highest we've gotten to is stage 8 which is 8 hours of no power. Currently, we have a very important substation that is at risk of breaking. And if does, loadshedding will be ramped up to stage 13. I'm just lucky I live an area where it isn't as bad and we have a wi-fi box.

God damn it this is annoying

#vent #fuck eskom #<- a south african proverb #fehwefhfheeghege #eskom supplies more than 80% of our electricity and they eant to charge people for getting power from other sources such as solar power #or other companies

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mariacallous · 10 months ago

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A two-month pause in South Africa’s rolling power cuts should have been a call for celebration. Instead, it has ignited debate over how it could boost support for the country’s embattled ruling party ahead of the national election on May 29.

The timing has led to widespread speculation that officials—at an enormous cost to the budget—are intervening in the electricity market to shore up support for the African National Congress (ANC), which risks losing its majority for the first time since the advent of democracy in South Africa three decades ago.

The turnaround at Eskom, the state-owned power utility which has struggled to maintain a steady supply of electricity since 2007, has indeed been dramatic.

Last year, scheduled blackouts, known locally as load shedding, reached record levels and cost the already floundering economy about $90 billion and over 860,000 jobs—particularly hitting its mining and manufacturing sectors. At the micro level, too, South Africans have had to mould their lives around daily power cuts.

Over the past five years, the worsening energy crisis has threatened the survival of businesses—including KFC, the popular American fast-food joint—and required costly fixes for companies that need a steady supply of electricity. Grocery retailer Shoprite recently reported spending $28 million in six months on diesel generators to keep its lights and refrigerators on.

Power cuts have also exacerbated the country’s crime problem, with reports of increased home burglaries in areas that are temporarily disconnected from the grid. Today, smartphone apps such as EskomSePush and Load Shedding Notifier, which provide alerts about impending blackouts, rank among the most downloaded apps in the country.

Owing to incessant breakdowns across the country’s fleet of aging coal-fired power stations, it is estimated that the average citizen spent a fifth of last year without electricity.

Thus, to partially cover the shortfall in electrical output in 2023, Eskom ramped up its use of costly diesel-powered generators, further compromising its already unsustainable financial position. According to Eskom’s latest annual report, the unit cost of electricity from diesel generators is 14 times higher than the utility’s coal plants.

Even so, the heavy reliance on diesel continued into the new year. However, in late March, Eskom announced a suspension of load shedding, thus, sparking confusion. Opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance, and other commentators are wary of “political interference” and believe that Eskom may be engineering a short-term fix to ratchet up support for the ANC in the run up to voting day.

To many, the skepticism is warranted given Eskom’s checkered past. Even the utility’s former CEO, Andre de Ruyter—who exposed endemic corruption when at the helm but quit the job in early 2023 after being poisoned with cyanide-laced coffee—has said the only plausible explanation is that diesel is being burned “at a rate of knots.”

In a televised interview last year, de Ruyter said that Eskom loses more than $55 million every month to theft, thanks to organized cartels that operate freely within the utility and dodgy procurement deals (an audit by his team found that the company paid over $11,000 for a single mop).

But data from Eskom’s system operator tells a different story about the recent load shedding-free streak. Though the utility’s diesel consumption was particularly high in the first 12 weeks of the year, it fell sharply when blackouts were suspended in March. Since then, use of the fuel has been well below the same periods in 2023, and even 2022.

Instead of running them almost constantly, as it did last year, Eskom is now using its diesel-powered turbines for their intended purpose only: to help meet surges in demand during the morning and evening peak periods.

According to Eskom, it spent 1.1 billion South African rand, or roughly $60 million, on diesel last month, a notable decline from the 3.1 billion rand spent in the same month a year before. Analysts are confident that the utility is being truthful, pointing out that the country’s electricity supply has increased materially in recent months while demand has shrunk.

Most notably, Eskom has brought several units of the Kusile power plant, located in the Mpumalanga province, back online. Though the facility has been under repair, the utility was granted regulatory approval to temporarily operate those units without technologies that prevent toxic sulfur dioxide emissions. This has effectively increased Eskom’s available generating capacity by as much as 2,100 megawatts (MW), which is more than the average supply deficit throughout 2023.

In addition to Kusile, the rest of the utility’s coal fleet is in slightly better shape thanks to increased maintenance over the summer months—between October and March—when electricity demand is typically below average. Both of these have contributed to a meaningful decline in the number of unplanned outages in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, a decrease in overall demand, owing to the weak economy and a boom in private renewable energy investments, has also helped. Eskom estimates that solar panels with a cumulative generating capacity of 5,500 MW have now been installed on the roofs of South Africa’s malls, office blocks, warehouses and households. Of that amount, roughly 2,100 MW was added in the last year alone—the vast majority of which is for self use as the country doesn’t yet have a national feed-in policy.

According to independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson, total demand for Eskom’s electricity has declined by around 1,400 MW on average, over the past year. He estimates that 30 percent of that is due to reduced consumption from industrial firms, such as steel producers, and from mining groups, including platinum miners, which employ some 182,000 people but have struggled amid a pullback in prices of the metal.

All things considered, the timing of the break in load shedding is merely “coincidental,” Mallinson said. But the communities near the sulfur dioxide-spewing Kusile power plant are still paying the price.

James Mackay, chief executive of the Energy Council of South Africa, a business group that is working with the government to resolve the power crisis, agreed, saying the reprieve “is not electioneering—it’s a genuine shift.”

The improvement is the result of “18 months to two years of hard work,” Mackay said, and reflects renewed efforts to clamp down on corruption, a fresh Eskom leadership team that has political support, an improved culture at the utility, and a stronger maintenance program. The private sector’s involvement, partly in the form of capacity building, is also making a difference.

While the country’s electrical grid remains vulnerable and load shedding is expected to return at some point, power cuts will be less severe going forward, Mackay predicted.

Until then, the ANC is benefiting from a partial recovery in support at just the right time.

In a national poll conducted by the Social Research Foundation in March 2023, 41 percent of ANC supporters said load shedding had forced them to reconsider their support for the party once led by Nelson Mandela. And a quarter said they would not vote for the party if it did not fix the country’s electricity crisis by election day.

“The lights being on has created a fortuitous campaigning environment for the ANC,” said Frans Cronje, director of the Social Research Foundation.

Last month, the party’s support dipped slightly below 40 percent for the first time ever, polling showed. But the latest surveys show it is creeping back up towards the 50 percent mark. The recovery is only partially attributable to the pause in rolling blackouts, Cronje said.

Since 2004, support for the ANC has been steadily declining, as voters remain frustrated over the country’s rising unemployment and poverty rates as well as the numerous corruption scandals that have plagued the administrations of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

Still, the party typically manages to win back some voters in the weeks before every election through an intensive door-to-door campaign. Yet Cronje says the “glacial trend” shows support for the ANC will continue to decline until the next election in 2029—even if load shedding is consigned to the history books.

By that time, South Africa will have liberalized its electricity sector and closed the chapter on Eskom’s century-long monopoly, according to a piece of legislation that may be signed into law before May 29.

Though the state has long resisted calls to allow for a competitive power market, Eskom’s dire financial situation and inability to keep the lights on has finally forced its hand.

The Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill is aimed at modernizing the country’s power sector by allowing non-Eskom electricity trading for the first time and requiring the establishment of a fully competitive wholesale market within five years.

That is an ambitious timeline, according to Mackay, who says the partnership between the government and the private sector will need to hold firm to ensure an orderly transformation of the power sector. Mackay adds that as South Africa moves beyond its era of energy insecurity, it will need to be transparent about its plans to decommission coal plants.

The government has suggested it will have to delay plant shutdowns for the foreseeable future, in spite of the blockbuster $8.5 billion energy transition funding deal it agreed to at the COP26 climate conference in late 2021.

“We have said we will transition to cleaner energy, but at our own pace and own time,” President Ramaphosa said last year. “We have got to do it, taking into account the needs of our people and the requirements of energy security.”

Though it is too early to declare victory, Eskom’s recent turnaround provides an opportunity to accelerate South Africa’s green energy ambitions, according to Mallinson. Doing so would help the country to cushion the economic blow of the European Union’s impending carbon border taxes—as things stand, South Africa will be hit harder than any other nation due to its unusually heavy reliance on coal.

While the transition is expected to open up new opportunities for South Africa to become a supplier of low-carbon steel and other goods, it will need to be carefully managed, with over 120,000 people working in the coal sector. The just transition program agreed at COP26 includes funding to reskill these workers and develop new industries in their communities, but progress to date has been slow.

President Ramaphosa wants to attract private-sector investment worth $110 billion in the next five years as South Africa leans more on its BRICS partners—including China, India and Russia—while also seeking to maintain close ties to the United States, the U.K., and Europe. But to successfully court investors and reignite the moribund economy, South Africa needs to finally close the chapter on its load shedding nightmare.

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spiritualdirections · 2 years ago

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Why South Africa is falling apart

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A priest from South Africa came to our parish to ask for donations to his mission. He was telling us about how South Africa is in danger of falling apart because of problems with electricity due to corruption in all parts of society.

Eskom, the national electric company of South Africa, is failing, causing rolling blackouts everywhere. The man brought in to fight corruption and fix the company resigned recently, because the corruption came from everywhere, including the highest levels of government and from his own company and its board. Oh, and because he was poisoned with cyanide, as he reveals in the interview above.

From an article by Helen Andrews:

"These alarm bells come on the heels of the resignation of Andre de Ruyter as CEO of Eskom in December 2022, three years after he was brought in to lead the embattled utility with a mandate to tackle corruption and end rolling blackouts. Resistance to his efforts at the highest levels, including by cabinet politicians, made his job impossible, and “load shedding” (as the rolling blackouts are called) reached record levels in 2021. With nothing left to lose, last month De Ruyter gave an hour-long interview to journalist Annika Larsen where he spilled the whole sorry story of corruption at Eskom.

The most explosive allegation aired by De Ruyter involved an attempt to assassinate him by putting cyanide in his coffee on December 12, the day of his resignation. “Never have a personalized mug, it’s a bad idea,” he joked. More disturbing than the assassination attempt was the total lack of interest in investigating it on the part of law enforcement. One of the workmen repairing the broken coffee machine on the day of the poisoning “has since absconded from work, he’s disappeared,” according to De Ruyter. “That remains to be investigated.” The detectives who took De Ruyter’s statement “inquired whether I had been experiencing problems with my sinuses. I asked them if they knew what cyanide was.” Weeks later, no arrests have been made.

De Ruyter was Eskom’s last, best hope. The board is not likely to find another CEO with the competence to handle this impossible job and the willingness to undertake it at the risk of death. The criminal forces that harried De Ruyter throughout his tenure will most likely now carry on their predations free of any remaining obstacles, enriching themselves until there is nothing left to loot. The dominos that would fall in the case of a total grid collapse start with phone lines, internet, and traffic lights, and end with looting, crime, and civil unrest.

So electricity could be the pillar that finally brings the Rainbow Nation tumbling to the ground.

I've long been interested in South Africa because of my work on mercy. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the early 90s helped South Africa transition to peace after apartheid, when everyone thought that there would be civil war in order to remove the Afrikaan government. Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace prize for this.

Just a few years later, it turns out that the electric company was forced to change its entire workforce under bizarrely implemented affirmative action laws. A workforce that was 70% white was required to become 50% black within 4 years. The results have finally come home to roost. Engineering requires competence, not symbolism, and much of the affirmative action law seems to have been about symbolism.

Civil chaos on this level is akin to the aftermath of a civil war. So those who were worried about South Africa's future back after apartheid might have been proven right in the long run. And the government's attempts to heal racial wounds quickly through affirmative action policies might have been an important part of what has ruined it.

#south africa #apartheid #truth and reconciliation #desmond tutu #mercy what every catholic should know #mercy #affirmative action #Youtube

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