The significance of the small-scale renewable energy market for Eskom.

Abstract

Eskom is a state-owned company that has supplied South Africa and the southern African region with electricity for over 100 years. It has been more than ten years since the first ‘load shedding’ occurred in 2008, which intensified between 2019 and 2020. Eskom has been providing electricity at all costs, despite challenges due to commissioning delays and underperformance of new-build generators. These challenges have led to chronic failures of aging generation equipment in the last two years, causing lower-than-optimal economic growth in the country. The Energy Availability Factor, which provides a monthly percentage of available megawatts (MW) from the total fleet, has fallen in the last three years. These challenges form the basis that necessitate a study such as the current investigation, which focuses on alternative measures that Eskom can implement to meet the electricity demand for the country, other than depending on coal-fired generation plants, to increase the capacity of electricity delivered, to improve the availability of installed capacity, and to maintain and increase the customer base. This qualitative study was conducted to examine the significance of the small-scale renewable energy market for Eskom, which can provide alternative electricity sources for customers and improve the organisation’s financial state. Purposive sampling was used to select the 20 participants included in the study, and semi-structured interviews were conducted via MS Teams. The participants comprised Eskom Distribution managerial employees who form part of a small-scale renewable energy project for Eskom. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected during the interviews. From the findings, it emerged that participants viewed Eskom’s participation in the small-scale renewable energy market as critical to the country in many ways, in terms of retaining and gaining customers, benefiting stakeholders such as customers, developers, financial institutions, and educational institutions, and ultimately ensuring long-term energy security for the country. The recommendations emanating from the study are that Eskom needs to: 1) ensure that there are plans for distribution network expansion and improvement to accommodate renewable energy sources; 2) reconsider connection costs for renewable energy plants to be more affordable for the customers; 3) ensure that product marketing is intense to attract more customers; and 4) facilitate workforce training for proper execution of work related to the renewable energy market.