SOUTH Africa has experienced power shortages with rolling blackouts on an unprecedented scale in 2022. This state of affairs is largely due to technical failures at its ageing fleet of coal power plants.
The present power generation shortage is due to the power utility Eskom’s failure to add sufficient new electricity generation to the grid. This meant that it had to keep ailing old power stations going beyond their projected life span. The coal plants are prone to frequent renewed breakdown. In addition, their maintenance and parts replacements are becoming prohibitively expensive.
Given the major contribution that the burning of coal makes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, electricity generation from coal is in any case globally viewed as extremely problematic, with major pressure and incentives to scale this down.
South Africa is currently ranked eighth in the world in terms of the total amount of coal used for electricity generation. This is
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