South Africa to continue to depend on coal

• a month ago (2024-03-27)
• David Flin

Africa 303 Coal 275

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Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s Energy Minister, said it would be “very wrong” to expect a transition from its dependence on coal-fired power generation to renewable energy, and that the country will continue to rely on coal for the vast bulk of its power supply for much longer.

His statement that coal will continue to play a dominant role in South Africa’s energy mix comes as Western nations are looking to invest in zero-carbon technologies. Mantashe said clean energy technologies that rely on intermittent factors like sunshine or wind are less reliable than coal plants. He said: “Moving to heavy dependence on renewables is a technical mistake. It will never work.”

Eskom Holdings , the state-owned electricity company, is struggling to meet demand for power because its coal-fired power plants are unreliable and keep breaking down as a result of age and poor maintenance. This results in long outages of up to 12 hours a day. Mantashe said that the government’s focus is on improving the energy availability factor at coal-fired plants.