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Blog: 3 March 2017 (ESKOM vs Independent Power Producers)
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In today's blog we take a look at the total contribution to South Africa's electricity generation by both ESKOM and independent power producers (IPP). We take a look at it on an interactive battery graph instead of just giving users the regular run of mil line charts.
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ESKOM vs IPP
The battery chart below shows the current contribution to SA's overall electricity supply (for January 2017)
As can be seen from the chart above, ESKOM currently supplies 91.7% of the 18 897 gigawat hours of electricity available in South Africa (see top left battery), while the rest is made up by IPP's (see top right battery). Thus 1835 gigawatt (or 8.3%) of available power is made up by IPP's. Which is a rather sizeable chunk. As in January 2000 (this figure was a mere 814gigawatt hours or 5% of total electricity available)
Now for the more interesting part of this dataset. We looked at the highest level of gigawatt hours produced by both ESKOM and IPP's (since January 2000) and then compared the level of January 2017 to the overall high reached from January 2000. And when one looks at this metric, ESKOM's electricity production in January 2017 is at only 87% of it's highest level reached from January 2000 (see bottom left battery). While IPP's January 2017 electricity produced was at 96% of it's highest level reached since January 2000.
From this it is clear that ESKOM is not nearly as efficient now as it was in the past, while IPP's are running at close to all time high levels of electricity produced. Next time you want to thank ESKOM for no more loadshedding think twice. As ESKOM is not producing more and more power that is saving us from darkness, but consumers are becoming more efficient electricity users and IPP's are picking up where ESKOM is leaving some slack.
From this it is clear that ESKOM is not nearly as efficient now as it was in the past, while IPP's are running at close to all time high levels of electricity produced. Next time you want to thank ESKOM for no more loadshedding think twice. As ESKOM is not producing more and more power that is saving us from darkness, but consumers are becoming more efficient electricity users and IPP's are picking up where ESKOM is leaving some slack.