By:Zawya

South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has released   its annual report on power generation in south Africa . The report covers the period from January 1 to December 31, 2024 and provides an analysis of South Africa’s energy availability and utilization statistics.

According to the report, South African state utility Eskom’s installed capacity remained unchanged in 2024 compared to 2023 due to decreased demand in the country. Growth in private sector embedded generation has seen peak demand decrease by 1%, resulting in total energy production increase by 4% from 2023 to 2024 as a result of higher coal energy availability.

Electricity generation from coal increased by 7% – due to improvements in the energy availability factor (EAF) – while pumped storage generation saw an increase of 8%, resulting in decreased diesel utilization in the country. With an increase of around 12 TWh, coal now contributes roughly 177.9 TWh to South Africa’s 220 TWh total system load.

Improvements in Eskom’s fleet EAF has helped reduce utilization of diesel generators in the country. According to the report, diesel and gas utilization reduced by roughly 6% in 2024 compared to 2023.

In addition to Eskom’s installed capacity remaining unchanged, no new generation installed capacity was added by South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP). However, private sector solar PV generation – which now totals 5.8 GW – added roughly 2.3 TWh to the grid.

As a result of decreased demand and improved performance of coal plants, loadshedding – planned outages – in the country decreased by roughly 76% in 2024 compared to 2023. Despite this, the national average electricity tariff increased by approximately 10% over the past ten years, significantly higher than the average inflation rate of 5.2% of the same period.