ESKOM - Money & mis-information

So I was wrong. I have been saying that I thought the electricity price would be going up around 40% per year. But ESKOM has asked for 45% for the next 3 years.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/eskom-to-face-funding-gaps-despite-tariff-increase-2009-10-13

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?from=rss_&fArticleId=5201562

The truth is, due to poor planning on government’s part and ESKOM’s profit focussed madness of the last few years, the truth is that electricity does indeed need to go up this much in order to fund ESKOM’s new build programme, and there is little doubt that conventional energy (coal and nuclear) will continue to become more expensive. Is there another way?

Those of us in the know would say a resounding YES! This is the way:

1) Energy Efficiency – the CHEAPEST way to create extra capacity and save business money. But this needs to be driven by someone other than ESKOM, as ESKOM does NOT WANT to their customers to reduce their consumption, whatever they might say. Consumption = profit. In ESKOM’s so called low-carbon model, Energy Efficiency plays the smallest of roles, where it should be creating an extra 40% of capacity, negating the need for new power stations

2) Renewable Energy – by the time a new nuclear plant is built in South Africa, there is a good chance solar technologies will be CHEAPER. Renewables are becoming cheaper all the time. They work with distributed multiple technology generation models, that increase energy security, using local resources. They create jobs. They can move revenue for energy from large corporations to communities or small local businesses. They can be introduced FAST.

Both the above also MASSIVELY reduced carbon emissions.

But ESKOM does not want you to know this, and they are doing everything in their power to distribute misinformation about the best way forward. I used to think that ESKOM was an elephant, blustering about doing their own thing. They are not. They are a HERD of elephants – one bull leading them forward, but many blustering about behind, leaving destruction in their path, all for their own benefit.

Even at the International Solar Energy Congress that I am attending in JHB, which ESKOM ironically is the main sponsor, the few times I have heard ESKOM speak they pretend to be keen on Renewables, but quietly introduce “problems” for their adoption – they are too expensive, the grid is not ready for large Renewables, they can’t do baseload. All not true.

But, whether in the short term, or the long term, Renewables will prevail in South Africa – but t what cost, economic, social and environmental, will be imposed on our country, before it does?

Frank