‘Eskom’s carbon footprint could hamper agri exports in future’

Eskom’s extensive carbon footprint could mean that South Africa’s agricultural commodities will not be welcomed on international markets in future, due to the global move away from fossil fuel usage.

‘Eskom’s carbon footprint could hamper agri exports in future’
Eskom’s extensive carbon footprint could mean that South Africa’s agricultural commodities will not be welcomed on international markets in future, says André de Ruyter, CEO of Eskom.
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This was according to André de Ruyter, CEO of Eskom, who was speaking at the Agbiz Congress 2022, which was held at Sun City in North West on 23 and 24 June.

Due to this fact, Eskom was currently restructuring its business model to become more carbon neutral.

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“It’s crucial that we should decarbonise our business, to ensure that there won’t be discrimination against our clients going forward.”

De Ruyter said it was therefore in agriculture’s best interest that Eskom became “greener and more carbon neutral”.

“A decision has [also] been taken to accelerate grid access for independent third parties wanting to sell [power] back to the [national] grid. I know in the past Eskom has been hesitant to do this, but we are excited to announce it now.”

Responding to this announcement, Dr John Purchase, former CEO of Agbiz, said: “We will support this, but we need to know how this will happen practically”.

De Ruyter acknowledged that the practical implications of “reselling power to the national grid” remained a problem.

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“We need a regulatory framework to help us with this. We have hundreds of municipalities that each has their own extensive grid. While Eskom has a standardised grid system, each municipality’s grid is run differently. It’s important that these inconsistencies be removed, because it’s currently a massive problem from a voltage perspective.”

De Ruyter said that if these challenges could be address, farmers would be able to contribute greatly to the generation of the additional capacity needed by the country to reduce rolling blackouts.

Eskom was also looking into generating “greener energy”, he said. “[Eskom is] a massive landowner, and currently leases 4 000ha of land to independent contractors who are harvesting green energy for the national grid.”

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Furthermore, Eskom was also expanding its own green energy generation on the Mpumalanga highveld through sun and wind farms.

“We want to specifically create jobs in this area, because it’s mainly where jobs will be lost if we move away from coal generation. We need to replace those [lost jobs] if we truly want to create a just transition.”

While De Ruyter said he believed that the private sector could help to solve the current energy crisis through investment, he explained that at least R1,2 trillion in additional government funding would be required in infrastructure investment before 2030 to get Eskom back on track.

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