South Africa, supported by the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2019), should be able to get to the end of load shedding within the medium to long term, Ishmael Poolo, the CEO of the Central Energy Fund, said yesterday in a speech at the Africa Energy Week conference held in Cape Town.
Renewable energy sources as articulated in IRP2019 could come online within 18-24 months and new build programmes of gas and nuclear would be longer but sustainable solutions to end load shedding and stabilise the economy, he said.
Poolo said it was the responsibility of industry leaders in the energy forum to chart the path towards building a functioning grid and large-scale power sources.
“Success will be measured on realised policy reforms, increased investment, optimal utilisation of natural resources, the development of reliable renewable energy technology towards a just transition, using gas and clean coal technologies, amongst others,” he said.
Poolo said with South Africa bearing the brunt of rolling blackouts, costing the country’s economy about R4 billion a day, the challenge was how it could reach a relatively stable energy availability factor of 75%.
“Electricity shortages were found to reduce the likelihood of an individual being employed in a high skilled job by 35-41% and of being self employed by 32-47%. Economists tell us that in order to reduce unemployment by at least 1%, a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) must grow at above a 4% rate for one year,” he said.
South Africa’s unemployment rate stands at 34.5% and its GDP growth rate is projected to average about 1.8% next year and 1.3% in 2024.
The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement presented an opportunity for South Africa to develop an integrated energy system.
“For South Africa here lies is an opportunity to import liquefied natural gas into Coega and Richards Bay. CEF is at an advanced collaborative process with ENH in Mozambique and with Sasol in South Africa to see this project through,” he said.
South Africa had been forging ahead to create favourable conditions for the development of oil and gas.
“As CEF group we are looking forward to investors that want to develop new build power projects. Accordingly, we are strongly in support of gas to power as either baseload, mid-merit or peaking power plant while we maintain our old coal-fired power plants within the medium term,” he said.
Recent oil and gas developments in and around South Africa included JSE-listed Renergen, which recently announced that the Virginia Gas Project Plant in the Free State, South Africa’s first commercial liquified natural gas station, was operational.
Through the CEF the government was in the process of acquiring a 10% stake in the project by investing significant capital in this gas discovery.
Meanwhile, TotalEnergies and partners had announced discoveries in block 11B and 12B in the past few years. TotalEnergies last month lodged the production right application with South Africa’s Petroleum Regulator.
Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas had mobilised a drilling rig in August to drill the Gazania-1 prospect (block 2B) in the Orange Basin, off the Northern Cape coast.
“We anticipate the drilling campaign to begin around September 2022 targeting approximately 300 million barrels light oil resources,” Poolo said.
In Zimbabwe, Australia-listed company Invictus Energy expects to start drilling its first exploration well for oil and gas in the northern part of Zimbabwe (Mukuyu-1 prospect) in the coming weeks.
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