2023-11-10 12:20:29
Fikile Mbalula, secretary general of the African National Congress, which governs South Africa, returned the charge, reiterating the claim that an $8.8 billion climate transition financing pact with international partners is responsible for the applicants. power cuts in the country.
Mbalula, speaking Thursday at a debate between political party leaders in Johannesburg, said the closure of coal plants is a condition imposed by international partners for South Africa to obtain financing to invest in renewable energy. So far, the partnership has not yet produced results and the premature closure of coal plants is responsible for the blackouts that have damaged Africa’s most industrialized economy.
The program “decapacitated us to the point where today we are shedding load,” he said, using a local term for scheduled power outages. “Look where we are now. We were at the forefront of decommissioning some coal plants.”
The comments, which echo those of the country’s energy and electricity ministers, could further complicate the troubled pact between South Africa and some of the world’s richest nations that aims to help the country transition away from coal. The dirtiest fossil fuel provides more than 80% of the energy in South Africa, the world’s 14th largest producer of greenhouse gases.
Although initially agreed at the COP26 climate summit in 2021, significant funds from the Partnership for a Just Energy Transition have not yet been channeled because according to international partners South Africa has not produced a detailed plan on how it would spend the money.
The Partnership was initially agreed in November 2021 between the governments of South Africa, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, together with the European Union. The Partnership aims to accelerate the decarbonisation of South Africa’s economy, with a focus on the electricity system, to help it achieve the ambitious targets set out in its updated Nationally Determined Contribution emissions targets.
In recent years, South Africa has closed only one coal-fired power station, Komati. When this plant was closed last year, only one of its nine generating units was still operational, meaning that just over 100 megawatts were removed from the grid. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., the state-owned power utility, has at times instituted outages due to supply shortages of up to 6,000 megawatts.
The Presidential Climate Commission said in a report on Komati’s closure that comments by Gwede Mantashe, energy minister and ANC president, and Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, electricity minister, that Komati should be reopened gave false hope to local communities. Eskom said the plant had reached the end of its operational life and could not remain open.
Komati was also closed with the help of funding from the World Bank, not the Partnership for a Just Energy Transition.
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