‘Political opportunism’: Inside the Kelvin and Steenbras power stations propaganda

In what has been described as empty posturing, experts have noted how politicians suddenly have ideas and solutions to the power cuts and load shedding they themselves have created.

With local government election campaigning in full swing, experts have noted how City of Johannesburg executive mayor Mpho Moerane announced a power purchase agreement with the privately-owned Kelvin Power Station for an extra 100MW, bringing the total to 180MW.

DA leader John Steenhuisen, on the other hand, in a social media campaign, has boasted about how they have been able to cushion Western Cape, which the party governs, from load shedding because of the Steenbras Power Station and how this could be emulated elsewhere if the party was voted into power.

There are a few problems with this though, as pointed out on Twitter by electricity expert Chris Yelland.

He pointed out that the DA taking credit for Steenbras providing Cape Town with power was somewhat disingenuous.

But both the Kelvin and Steenbras power stations are not new, according to Professor Sampson Mamphweli, head of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at Stellenbosch University.

Also, what the potential voter is not told is that Kelvin Power Station in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, has reached the end of its lifespan and Steenbras has stored excess electricity.

“Kelvin Power Station was built around 1957 with additional units done in 1969. All units built then have reached their end of life and need to be decommissioned. It had a total of 600MW but since December 2014 it has been providing only 200MW, running one unit. The power station supplies power to the City of Johannesburg, so there is nothing new announced by the politicians,” Mamphweli said.

He said the coal-fired power station was now being converted to a gas-fired power station, with a total installed capacity of 700MW and that it was expected to be commissioned in 2023.

“So it’s contribution will only be felt after 2023,” Mamphweli said.

He said Steenbras’s pumped storage system was one of the oldest pumped hydropower stations in Africa, built more than 30 years ago.

It belongs to the City of Cape Town and has 180MW installed capacity, with Mamphweli saying there has been maintenance going on for some time on the scheme.

He explained that this scheme involved pumping water upstream during the time when enough electricity was available and then releasing the water back, which goes through turbines and generates electricity.

“It’s basically storing excess electricity. I am not sure why politicians would mention these two electricity generation systems that have been there ever since, now,” Mamphweli added.

Election propaganda and political posturing

According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), all these apparent statements boils down to sheer political posturing ahead of the local government elections on 1 November.

“We have also seen it on e-tolls, tackling corruption, illegal immigrants and other issues. I guess it is a reality around the world. The real issue is that today, political parties are using social media platforms (some better than others) to get their stories or propaganda out there and the public will have to decide on the authenticity thereof,” Wayne Duvenage, Outa head, said.

He said, unfortunately, many will accept these stories while others will not, either based on their knowledge of the matter shared, or blindly disregard because they did not believe the person or party saying it.

SA voters must also shoulder some blame

At the heart of SA’s energy crisis is government’s failure to plan, maintain and embark on new infrastructure projects, Sethulego Matebesi – associate professor of sociology at the University of the Free State – said.

He said public representatives won’t invest in new infrastructure unless they stand to benefit from the project, saying voters were partly to blame for this mess by voting back into power the same incompetent government.

Matebesi said it was the election season, meaning promises from desperate politicians, but that come the announcement of the election results, it will be back to square one.

“It becomes a vicious cycle of promises and I believe that South Africans need to start to punish all these political parties that keep on promising and give others an opportunity but we all know that South Africans will protest today and tomorrow vote for the very same party they have been protesting against and that by itself is encouraging this problem to go on.

“It is not within my ambit to tell South Africans who to vote for but fact of the matter is we are where we are with the electricity crisis is partly also because of the role that we as South African citizens have been playing,” he lamented.

Opportunism

North-West University political analyst Professor André Duvenhage said it was interesting that just few months ago, the ANC government was dragging its feet in allowing power production capacity to the private sector but now was signing such deals.

He has this was nothing but opportunism on the part of the ruling party, saying had the ANC allowed extensive private generation capacity, not only would we have reduced load shedding but also the price of electricity.

“Reality is that we need private capacity where the state is failing. We have a satiation where Eskom is going the same way as the SA Airways and a parallel state is becoming a reality in SA,” Duvenage said.

He said the signing of the Kelvin Power Station power purchase deal and its timing showed a desperate party with no solutions for the problems it has created.

siphom@citizen.co.za