As world leaders celebrate the president Cyril Ramaphosa For his green agenda in Egypt, his Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy insisted this week that coal will continue to play a critical role in electricity generation in South Africa. Gwede Mantashe believes coal, along with gas, nuclear and hydropower should be the main baseload.
Ramaphosa this week unveiled South Africa’s R1.5 trillion investment plan to use less coal to a group of rich countries, to an enthusiastic response from the UK, US, Germany, France and the EU in the COP27 climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh. Egypt
The Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JETP) details a strategy to decommission coal-fired power stations and bring new renewable energy generation capacity up and running. South Africa is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world and 86% of its electricity is generated with coal.
President of France Emmanuel Macron described the plan as a “landmark”, while the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyensaid the partnership was a “first-of-its-kind global initiative” to “accelerate” a just energy transition in other countries.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the JETP “groundbreaking” and said it “creates a new model” for dealing with the climate crisis.
But on Thursday, during a parliamentary debate on the just energy transition, Mantashe said any suggestion that coal “had reached its expiry date is a myth”, citing a 700% increase in coal exports from South- Africa since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Without elaborating on their findings, he said several studies give us “hope and belief that coal will continue to play a critical role in our just energy transition.”
He said the consensus in South Africa was that the country should transition from high to low carbon emissions, rather than off fossil fuels.
“We must ensure baseload power supply through a combination of gas, nuclear, coal and hydro. A pendulum swing from coal-fired power generation to renewables does not guarantee baseload stability. It will sink the country in a baseload crisis.”
Base load is the minimum amount of electricity needed to supply the power grid at any given time.
This week, Mantashe’s department and Eskom signed agreements that could establish three new wind projects in the Western and Eastern Cape as part of South Africa’s Renewable Independent Power Producer Program (REIPPP) Bid Window 5. The developer, Mauritius-based Red Rocket South Africa, says the projects will add 364MW to the Eskom grid by the end of 2024.
Mantashe said further agreements would be signed with 13 preferred bidders in this window before the end of this month.
But he added that the REIPPP was not a replacement for Eskom.
“It must be clear to all that Eskom is not for sale as it remains the country’s baseload power generator.”
He also pointed out that Africa was the most polluting of the environment, but it was the continent most affected by climate change. “Therefore, it is up to the developed nations that historically benefited from industrial economic activities that polluted the world and caused climate change to fund our transition adequately and appropriately.”
He said the people of South Africa must cushion themselves from the “disastrous consequences” associated with the just energy transition, including job losses in carbon-intensive industries.
