Risk agency concerned over energy crisis inaction

AFTER worrying reports that loadshedding might reach higher stages in upcoming months safety and risk consultancy Riskonet Africa has criticised a lack of action from the state-owned entity.

Speaking at the Africa Renewables Investment Summit in Cape Town, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter warned that unless South Africa takes a more aggressive approach to investment in renewable energy sources and addresses air quality standards, Eskom may be forced to more draconian measures.

As existing coal power stations do not meet emission standards De Ruyter explained that Eskom has a choice of either spending R300 billion to retrofit power stations with equipment to clean their emissions or decommission them entirely.

The pace and urgency of change is not good enough says Riskonet Africa. “We’ve heard so many references to reports and recommendations on what to fix at Eskom, but insufficient action has taken place in the context of ever-worsening fleet capacity,” says Volker Von Widdern, Principal of Strategic Risk at Riskonet Africa. Von Widdern blames a lack of responsible leadership and strategic risk planning within the organisation.

“If we presented the full consequences of current load shedding to responsible leaders 10 years ago, would we have to deal with things issues like poor quality equipment for maintenance, hamstringing procurement through PFMA rules that delay procurement of essential items by 12-18 months, the ongoing decline in generating capacity, massive loss of skills and poor productivity compared to global benchmarks?” notes Von Widdern.

Von Widdern also points to the lack of collective action on the part of big businesses, mining, and metros for the ongoing crisis. “The absence of collective action by the large stakeholder groups using constitutional rights could have forced the restructuring of Eskom’s business model, diversified generation and accelerated renewables,” he says.

Von Widdern believes that if stakeholders act now, instead of waiting for more of the same platitudes and inaction that led us into the energy crisis and the new Eskom Board implements risk management by removing known and potential blockages to execution of a broad-based, future fit power generation mode all the above can still be achieved in the next 10 years