South Africa: the renewal of the electricity grid will require 21 billion dollars
Eskom, South Africa's state-owned power company, is in discussions with the government about how to attract the equivalent of $21 billion in public and private funding for a major expansion of the electricity grid to accommodate the expected surge in power renewable, the company told Bloomberg on Friday.
Eskom has estimated it needs $21 billion (390 billion South African rand) to finance its plan to build nearly 9,000 kilometers of new power lines over the next decade, which would equate to more than triple the kilometers of transmission lines installed in the last decade.
Currently, coal is the main source of energy for South Africa, accounting for around 80 percent of the country's energy mix. The country is also the fifth largest coal exporter in the world.
But South Africa is experiencing a significant energy crisis, with daily power outages crippling the economy as state utility Eskom continually fails to increase generation capacity to keep up with demand growth in recent years .
Camden Power Station, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. A coal-fired power plant that had first been decommissioned, then brought back into action to meet the needs
Eskom is currently engaged in “ongoing discussions with key government ministries on funding capital expenditure requirements for transmission in South Africa,” the company told Bloomberg via email in response to questions.
Some of the money could come from the so-called Just Transition plan that rich nations have pledged to support with funding, according to Eskom.
The state-owned company is also considering tapping private financing, he said.
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union are mobilizing an initial sum of $ 8.5 billion to catalyze the first phase of South Africa's Just Energy Transition (JET) Investment Plan, as part of a long-term Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), signed in 2021.
As part of the just transition plan, South Africa will invest in reskilling and reskilling, in cash payments to support laid-off workers as they find new jobs, and in the redevelopment of former coal mines and coal-fired power plants as clean energy production.
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The article South Africa: Renewing the electricity grid will require $21 billion comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/sud-africa-il-rinnovo-della-rete-elettrica-richiedera-21-miliardi-di-dollari/ on Sun, 14 Apr 2024 08:00:05 +0000.