Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) director-general Jacob Mbele has confirmed that the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 (IRP 2019) will continue to be implemented while it is reviewed, consulted and updated – a process that is set to continue well into 2023.

Speaking during a dialogue on the energy transition hosted by the Presidential Climate Commission, Mbele argued that the IRP 2019, which is widely accepted to include assumptions that are out of date, was “not irrelevant” and that its implementation would thus proceed.

“The process of updating the IRP does not place on hold the implementation of the much-needed capacity as projected in the IRP 2019.

“We are therefore proceeding with the implementation and roll-out of the rest of the capacity in the IRP 2019,” he said during the virtual event, which took place against the backdrop of ongoing load-shedding.

Eskom has indicated that as much as 6 000 MW of new capacity is needed to reduce the risk of rotational power cuts, as well as to provide it with the “headroom” needed to conduct maintenance across a neglected and undermaintained coal fleet that has become prone to unplanned breakdowns.

Both Mbele and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe have indicated previously that a Ministerial determination is being prepared for the residual 14 000 MW of renewable energy allocated for in the IRP 2019, but which is not yet catered for under existing Ministerial determinations.

Such determinations remain a prerequisite for the initiation of procurement processes for additional generation capacity.

Mbele reported that Eskom energy planners had been requested to conduct the power system modelling and analysis required for the update and that the department had also commissioned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Electrical Power Research Institute to help with the review of key IRP assumptions, including those relating to the demand forecast and technology costs.

He indicated that the review would also take account of South Africa’s revised emission reduction pledge as outlined in the 2021 update to its Nationally Determined Contribution, which was improved, ahead of COP26, to between 420- and 350-million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030. The lower range of the offer is said to be in line with what would be required from South Africa to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 ^oC.

Mbele refused to be drawn on a date for the publication of the updated IRP, saying only that it would “definitely not take the five years that it took to land the IRP 2019”.

In a separate presentation, the DMRE’s Thabang Audat said that the goal was to complete the update before the end of 2023.

Audat reported that the process would involve three phases and that the first phase, which included an assessment of the current plan, was under way, with the demand assessment having already been completed.

The second phase would focus on actions needed to close the supply/demand gap in the short term, while the third would focus on balancing supply and demand in the longer term, with the DMRE having already stated that the new IRP’s time horizon would be extended beyond 2030.

STACKED SERVICES

Eskom’s Ronald Marais indicated that the energy plan would need to take account of the fact that the energy services that were traditionally supplied as a bundled offering through conventional technologies such as coal, gas and nuclear would need to be catered for, procured and paid for as more variable renewable energy was introduced.

Marais said there was no system requirement for so-called baseload plant, but that the services of peak capacity, dispatched ramping, synchronous power, frequency control and voltage management would still be required.

Likening the electricity system to a bakery supplying cakes, Marais explained that a system based on conventional technologies used to supply ready-made cakes of different sizes in the form of baseload, mid-merit and peaking supply.

The emerging system, meanwhile, would be made up of the ingredients needed to supply the cakes, with a combination of new technologies providing the stacked services required by the system operator. Marais stressed that these energy, capacity and ancillary services ingredients would need to be paid for through the tariff.

He argued that households that had invested in solar-inverter-battery systems had come to appreciate these ingredients, with the solar panels providing energy, the batteries the capacity and the inverter the ancillary services needed to keep the system going.

Marais also stressed the importance of paying for the grid, noting that domestic and international studies point to the central role of the grid in enabling the shift to renewables.

“If you do not have a significant, large grid to harvest all the renewable energy at the times they vary across the spatial framework of the country, you don't achieve an optimisation of lower cost.

“So having a grid that can move the power from where the renewables are generated, and providing you this least-cost option, is absolutely critical.”

The CSIR’s Warrick Pierce said the IRP - which is a technoeconomic model that outlines the least-cost way for supply to meet demand, while taking account of other policy objectives, including emissions commitments and minimum emission standards - would answer what to build and by when.

However, Pierce said the update would also likely be influenced by key domestic and international themes such as electricity market liberalisation and decentralisation, as well as the fact that electricity customers increasingly had electricity resources that would have to be taken into account.

In addition, the IRP should be co-optimised with transmission and distribution requirements, as well as increased sector coupling, including through the introduction of electric vehicles.

University of Cape Town Energy System Research Group’s Jesse Burton highlighted various other policy considerations for the update, including affordability, the threat of the imposition of carbon border adjustments on South African exports, and the health benefits associated with transitioning from coal to renewables.

Burton also argued that the IRP should not focus solely on supply and should seek to integrate energy efficiency and demand side management, or EEDSM.

“EESDM is one of the really quick interventions we can use for keeping the lights on.

“But it also has long-term impacts…[as] you can reduce the need for new investment in the power sector, and some of the work we've done shows the reduction could be almost R100-billion.

“So there's a huge untapped resource to run processes more efficiently and to shift load and the demand, and a true IRP will consider the demand side and the opportunities that it would afford us as well as the supply side.”