It’s actually good to see that some folks have began monitoring some information and deducing what has been occurring in South Africa’s photo voltaic PV and now additionally lithium-ion battery storage scene. Just lately, we reported that some evaluation by Johannesburg-based Gaylor Montmasson-Clair, a Senior Economist at Commerce, Industrial Coverage Methods (TIPS), confirmed that $650 million (R12 billion) price of photo voltaic panels had been imported into South Africa within the first 6 months of 2023. Gaylor provides that that is 2.2 GW price of photo voltaic panels.

Now, a brand new replace from Gaylor reveals that in the identical timeframe, South Africa imported $1.1 billion of lithium-ion cells and batteries. $1.1 billion price in simply the primary 6 months of 2023! If we use present pricing estimates for quantity orders of $250/kWh for stationary storage, it will imply South Africa imported about 4.4 GWh of lithium-ion cells and batteries within the first 6 months of the yr. Gaylor provides that this an enormous soar from the $0.7 billion price of cells and batteries imported in he complete of 2022 and a whopping 5× on the $0.2 billion imported in 2021.

Picture from Gaylor Montmasson-Clair

Numerous South Africa’s coal energy vegetation are fairly previous now. Subsequently, plant breakdowns are fairly widespread, and Eskom, the nation’s nationwide energy utility, additionally has fairly a big a part of its fleet on deliberate upkeep and different actions to enhance efficiency of a few of these getting old vegetation. This has resulted in South Africans experiencing their worst ever interval of electrical energy rationing, referred to as loadshedding. Eskom’s loadshedding programme is structured in “Levels,” the place Eskom sheds a sure quantum of load from the grid to stabilize the grid — not all of sudden. Relying on the severity of the disaster, loadshedding is carried out in levels, from Stage 1 to Stage 8, the place Stage 1 sheds 1000 MW of load from the grid and in a Stage 8 state of affairs, Eskom takes out 8000 MW of load from the grid. Loadshedding is carried out over 2-hour or 4-hour blocks on a rotational foundation relying on the severity of the crises. Stage 8, nonetheless means most customers will expertise a blackout for about 12 hours. This yr alone, South Africans have skilled extra loadshedding than the earlier 5 years mixed! So, South Africa wants new era capability ASAP.

It’s good to see the expansion in each distributed and utility-scale photo voltaic PV in South Africa, which is rapidly including some important capability into the nation’s power combine. Nevertheless, as a result of frequent energy outages, installations of battery storage for each residential and industrial & industrial purposes is booming as South Africans transfer to again up their properties and companies throughout energy outages. Batteries add essential grid flexibility.

So, South Africa spent $650 million on importing photo voltaic cells and panels within the first 6 months of the yr after which one other $1.1 billion on importing lithium-ion cells and batteries. That’s $1.75 billion on these in simply 6 months! This has introduced up some huge discussions on how you can develop the localization of this ecosystem. South Africa has a number of firms that import photo voltaic cells after which assemble photo voltaic panels. The identical occurs for stationary battery storage. A number of firms import lithium-ion cells and assemble battery packs for the native and the export markets.

Featured picture from Gaylor Montmasson-Clair

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