South Africa Power Report 2021/22

South Africa Faces Major Power Sector Challenges as It Looks to ‘Just Transition’

South Africa Power Report 2020/21 assesses the causes and symptoms of South Africa's electricity crisis from political power struggles, governance issues and the long list of policy documents that are supposed to guide the ESI's future direction - but where in many cases ambitions are unfulfilled - to the country’s huge potential for renewable energy and the pressures of ensuring a ‘just transition’ away from coal.

Our five-year supply and demand projection shows that dispatchable generation may be insufficient to meet peak demand by the middle of the decade. An improvement in the performance of Eskom’s fleet, or a glut of new renewable generation, will be required if load shedding is to be avoided in the medium term. However, new rules on licensing could lead to a boom in the distributed generation market and the closing of the supply and demand gap.

Key features

• Critical analysis of power market structure, procurement programmes and the governing policies and regulations.
• Detailed demand and supply analysis - including an assessment of energy availability vs installed capacity and a detailed five-year outlook.
• In-depth look at the C&I market.
• Comprehensive information on in-development generation projects and profiles of key players in the sector.
• Independent power generation forecasts based on the actual project development pipeline, with data drawn from the African Energy Live Data database of more than 6,700 power projects and plants.
• Resource availability assessment - including coal, gas (domestic and imported), solar, wind and hydrogen potential.
• Analysis of South Africa’s T&D sector - extent of grid, reforms, plans plus interconnections and SAPP competitive market.
• Examination of the political environment including profiles of leading ANC and opposition figures.Assessment of governance, including ongoing actions to tackle historic and systemic political corruption scandals.
• An overview of the macroeconomic climate and outlook, including the impact of Covid-19, the country’s ‘junk’ Sovereign rating status and its long road back to investment grade.

Reasons to buy

Understand the main legal requirements project developers and investors in South Africa’s ESI need to consider.

Identify the risks - Many of the issues confronting the South African polity, its business environment and society are systemic. The report examines political power struggles, corruption and governance issues, plus the impact of Covid-19, the country’s ‘junk’ sovereign credit rating status and its long road back to investment grade.

Evaluate the progress of sectoral reform - The South African ESI has had a long list of policy documents that are supposed to guide its future direction. In many cases their ambitions are unfulfilled. The report examines each policy to provide context to the current direction of the sector and underline the major gaps in policy.

Recognise the opportunities for your business- The report outlines the strengths and weaknesses of procurement programmes, the future of coal plants as the energy mix evolves and the country’s growing C&I sector.

Understand the energy transition - the report examines the opportunities and pressures of ensuring a ‘just transition’ away from coal, putting into context the country’s huge potential for renewable energy, outlining the potential role of gas and LNG-to-power and examining the role of unions, Eskom and political players.

Clear analysis of the C&I market - providing need-to-know information on the current and potential market size, policy direction, regulatory requirements, tariffs and corporate PPAs.

Assess supply and demand scenarios- South Africa’s supply-demand balance is a top political issue. Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on lowering demand, 2020 saw some of the worst load-shedding the country has seen. African Energy assesses the causes of this crisis, including energy availability, and uses its own proprietary power database - African Energy Live Data - to provide a medium-term assessment of installed capacity projections to 2025, based on projects that have already been announced and upcoming procurement rounds.