Greener Electricity

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Eskom the South African power supply utility wants to shake off its “coal junkie” label and becoming a cleaner company as it grows and it plans to invest in more opportunities in southern Africa where there are potentially 200 million customers.

According to the power utility chief, these were among the nine goals Eskom had set for itself as part of its new strategic direction.

It is said although coal would still be an important factor in the future, the company was planning to reduce its dependency on coal over the next 20 years.

At present, about 90 percent of Eskom’s electricity is generated through coal. It is planning to build 5 gigawatts of “cleaner coal” generation capacity after 2025.

Eskom envisage to bring its coal’s share of generation down from 86 percent to below 50 percent over the next 20 years as the energy mix would be diversified to include nuclear, wind, solar, biomass and other sources.

Eskom want to lead South Africa’s nuclear programme, in partnership, and to play a lead role in solar power.

Eskom will soon have a detailed business plan for the region. There are a lot of exciting opportunities in the region.

Opportunities had been identified in countries such as Botswana and Namibia and a business plan would be presented to the board in February next year.

Eskom planned to build transmission networks and have the private sector handle the generation side.