The current meltdown over at Eskom is pretty horrifying to watch: it seems like every day another generator goes offline, and now we hear that because the state-owned supplier has been burning through its diesel reserves in an attempt to keep the power on, it’s about to run out of cash soon too.
The immediate implications are, of course, a disaster. There’ll be bailouts – which the taxpayer will have to fund – with no immediate end to loadshedding in sight.
Long term, there’s an even bigger problem coming: something that’s been playing on my mind for a while. It already makes economic sense to go off-grid and invest in solar power at home. If you have the space to put a solar generator and battery back-up, you’ll have a cheaper and more reliable power supply than the grid can provide for the next 20 years.
What’s scary, however, is the up front cost of going off-grid – anywhere between R100 000 and R200 000 in our calculations. The fear I have is that pretty soon, thanks to loadshedding, the inequality gap between those who have access to power in South Africa and those who don’t will start to widen, rather than close as it has done over the last few years.
According to Stats SA, the number of households with access to grid electricity rose to just under 10m in 2013, up 2.3% on 2012. Could that number start declining soon?
Here’s the theory: as rich customers and businesses opt out of Eskom’s supply completely and build their own private power plans, the cost of energy for the rest of the country will go up, resulting in fewer revenues and less investment for the monopoly supplier.
Over at the South African Civil Information Service (SACSIS), WWF executive committee member Saliem Fakir has just published an excellent piece which goes into great detail on how such a crisis is occurring in front of our eyes. It’s a great, if depressing, read …………
Full Article here: Will failure over electricity increase divide between rich and poor? – htxt.africa.