In 2023/24, the majority of South Africa’s electricity (82.8% of total demand) was generated from coal, while renewable energy contributed 8.8%. Despite these contributions, 2.2% of the country’s electricity demand remained unmet, primarily due to load shedding, which has ceased in April. This data reflects the most recent statistics available up to the end of 2024 Q3 (quarter 3).

No additional generation capacity was installed in 2023/24. Note that the figure below, however, excludes embedded and private generation.

Annual electricity production from coal as a percentage of total production continued to decrease in 2023, with a corresponding increase in unserved energy. Note that there is a slight downward trend in national energy requirements.

Electricity peak demand and energy production both trended downwards since 2010.

Renewable energy capacity and production are steadily increasing in South Africa but remain a small part of the overall capacity and energy mix. The following figures compare the installation and running costs of renewable energy technologies to their installed capacity and energy production. This comparison highlights how solar PV and wind are more cost-effective and less variable than CSP, explaining their higher installed capacity.

The following figure is zoomed in for clarity – see y-axis.

The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) is the amount of energy a generator was able to produce compared to its capacity over a period. From the figure below it is clear that the EAF has decreased steadily from 2018 to 2023. In 2024, the EAF trended upwards starting in March, corresponding with disapating load shedding.

Considering the EAF, the remaining unserved capacity is considered loss. This loss is split into planned, unplanned, and other losses.

Research is currently being conducted at the CRSES to investigate the correlation between diesel usage and load shedding. Until this research is complete, the two metrics are plotted together here.

The contribution of renewable energy varies both daily and seasonally. Solar PV is not well aligned to the typical system electricity demand, as seen in the figures below.

The integration of PV into the electricity system, both at a utility scale and as private generation, increases the need for ramping from the rest of the system during morning and evening hours. This effect, known as the “duck curve,” can pose challenges when the required ramp exceeds the system’s ramping capabilities. The red lines illustrate the significant difference in evening residual demand ramping between 2024 and 2030.

Wind production is also variable throughout the year, but in general aligns better with the total system demand. The location of the wind farm can impact the daily and seasonal production profiles significantly. The following figures illustrate the variability of wind and solar generation throughout the year.

Embedded Generation (EG) refers to electricity that is generated within the distribution network and consumed locally, without the need for transmission via the national grid.

Utility Scale refers to electricity generation installations with a capacity typically larger than 50 MWp, intended primarily for supplying power to the national grid rather than for localized or private use.

Customer PV Resource refers to photovoltaic (PV) electricity generated for the use of specific customers, encompassing all PV installations except those within the Renewable Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).

Wheeling is an arrangement with Eskom and/or a municipality that allows privately generated electricity to be transmitted across the distribution and/or transmission network to a specific customer, typically through a formalized agreement.

Behind-the-Meter (BTM) refers to any energy generation, storage, or usage infrastructure located on the customer’s side of an electricity meter, which typically represents the boundary between the public grid and private electrical infrastructure. Distribution utilities (e.g., municipalities) own infrastructure up to this point.

In 2024, the capacity of residential, commercial, and industrial PV installations more than doubled that of utility-scale PV, making a significant contribution to South Africa’s generation capacity. This progress aids in mitigating generation adequacy challenges, such as load shedding, highlighting the positive impact of distributed solar energy. However, the growing penetration of embedded generation presents new challenges. Behind-the-Meter (BTM) systems, particularly unregistered ones, remain invisible to utilities during operation and are difficult to control. This increases complexity in maintaining grid stability. Nonetheless, the grid is evolving to address these challenges, paving the way for a more resilient and adaptive energy system.

This data can also be separated per province.

The integration of wind and PV into existing power systems impacts a variety of technical aspects on a local, regional, and system-wide (national) level. Some of these impacts are relevant from the first wind and PV installations on a network, while other impacts only start occurring as the share of renewables on the network grows. In South Africa we need to investigate constrained flexibility, while stability will only become a challenge in the 2030s (based on our existing electricity policy).

Load shedding is increasing exponentially in recent years. In 2023 we experienced 6 838 hours (78%) of load shedding out of the 8 760 hours in the year. In April 2024, load shedding disapeared.

We can now zoom in on the last few years and categorize the load shedding by stage. There was an 81% increase from 2022 to 2023 in the total number of hours. Stage 6 increased significantly from 2022 to 2023, by 505%.

Load shedding suddenly disappeared in April.

The upper limit of load shedding refers to the maximum load that could be shed during a specific stage. Stage 1 has a load shedding upper limit of 1000MW, stage 2: 2000MW, stage 3: 3000 MW and so on. Therefore, the unserved energy (what was actually shed) is lower than the upper limit of that stage. Now we can compare the unserved energy with this upper limit for each month. These are also correlated to the load shedding hours. Even though load shedding stops in April 2024, there is a very small amount of unserved energy in the subsequent months. This is normal and some of this is planned for maintanence.

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Visualisation of South African Energy Data © 2024 by The Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (Stellenbosch University) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapters must indicate any modifications made to the original work. Stellenbosch University is disclaimed as the copyright owner and bears no responsibility for the use of derivatives.