Eskom is being replaced

South Africa will rely heavily on private companies to build power generation as coal-fired plants that produce the bulk of its electricity are gradually retired, according to the nation’s latest energy blueprint.

New private generation capacity will outpace power procured by the government from independent producers as well as stations planned by state-owned Eskom over the next few years, the Integrated Resource Plan showed. It was gazetted on Tuesday.

The private projects will help to replace a “significant reduction” of 8 GW of coal capacity between 2029 and 2030 after decades of use, the plan showed.

South Africa relies on the fossil fuel to produce more than 80% of its electricity and is transitioning to cleaner sources of energy.  

Over a shorter term, a pipeline of 13 GW of private generation capacity is expected to come on line through 2029. The projects have already secured permits and licensing, and are at an advanced stage of securing grid access, according to the IRP.

The private build overshadows about 5.7 GW of capacity expected during the same period from government programs to procure power from private developers. 

Eskom has 4.4 GW of committed capacity, which includes a 3,000 megawatt gas-fired project that has been delayed as South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal set aside an environmental authorization for the plant last month.

But the commissioning of 6 gigawatts of gas projects through 2030 is designed “to avoid shortfalls as the older baseload power stations reach end of life,” according to the IRP.