Presidential Climate Commission says a united position is needed on the future of power stations

The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has called on the government to agree on a public position regarding the future of the Komati power station.

The government needs to speak with one voice to allay fears and avoid confusing local residents, said Melissa Fourie, a climate justice advocate working as a PCC commissioner. She was alluding to senior government ministers who have, since the decommissioning, sent out messages showing their conflicting views on the station.

Fourie was giving feedback on an interim report on the Komati station to people living in the Nkangala district municipality in Mpumalanga on Friday.

Komati is the first of Eskom’s coal-fired fleet to shut down and is seen as the prototype for testing the country’s energy transition plans.

The station, just south of Middelburg, was decommissioned last October after more than 60 years of service and its end-of-life coincides with the start of South Africa’s just energy transition (JET). The closure of Komati’s last unit in October followed that of eight other units due to old age. Eskom said Komati was providing only 121 megawatts.

The country is looking to move away from coal as an energy source to renewable energy in a fair and equitable way that doesn’t leave behind people whose livelihoods rely on coal.

The plan for the Komati power station is to repurpose and repower the plant with renewables through a $500 million funding facility from the World Bank and partners.

The report recommended that future decommissioning projects should not happen without informing Eskom employees and residents years before the decommissioning begins.  

“A clear timeline must be provided with consistent messages shared, and opportunities for regular engagements to address areas of uncertainty,” Fourie said.

She said Eskom, the private sector and the government should work together to improve the lives of people affected by the decommissioning.

“Skills assessments must be done in those communities before the decommissioning process starts to ensure that everyone is catered for,” Fourie said.

The report also recommended that Eskom start repurposing and repowering projects before the decommissioning of power plants begins to ensure that jobs are available sooner.

The recommendation comes after people living near the Komati station raised concerns about the messaging from government ministers who appeared to have different opinions about the closure of the plant.

In August, Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa said Komati had been decommissioned “because someone gave us money and said decarbonise” and that  alternative sources of energy brought online had failed to compensate for the loss of coal-fired generation at the station. Ramokgopa said if it was up to him he would reopen Komati.

In the same vein, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said in May that Komati should not have been closed because it provided more power from coal than it would with its planned solar plant. Mantashe said Komati had produced more than 1 000MW with coal while the solar plant planned there would produce only 200MW.  

Yet When it was mothballed Komati was providing only 121 megawatts of electricity, according to Eskom.

Mantashe, who was answering questions in parliament, said in the 1980s three coal power stations including Komati were mothballed and restarted with success. 

Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan, on the other hand, has often differed with Mantashe and Ramokgopa, arguing that Komati’s decommissioning is a glimpse of what Eskom’s future looks like.

“We are bringing it [Komati] down so that it can rise again. It’s not a complete shutdown. We are not breaking anything. We are repurposing and preparing it for a different kind of future and it’s a future that the world itself … is preparing for,” Gordhan said earlier this year during a meeting with residents.

For their part, Eskom and the PCC have argued that decommissioning was better for the country in the long run.

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