IRP 2023: SA has underestimated the strain that EVs will place on the Eskom grid
ZERO CARBON Charge (Zero CC) this week made its submission to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) on the draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).
The IRP 2023 has proposed increased fossil fuel usage compared to the IRP 2019 and reduced renewable energy usage, as part of the energy mix to retain dispatchable capacity on the back of electricity supply deficit.
Zero CC said in a statement that the submission highlighted that, based on Zero CC’s research, the draft IRP had not fully taken into account the increased demand that the transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs) would place on the national Eskom powered grid over the next 26 years, up to 2050.
“Using projected EV sales, Zero Carbon Charge has calculated the quantity of EVs in South Africa each year while factoring in that the average South African driver covers 25 000km annually, with an EV energy efficiency (the amount of energy drawn from a vehicle’s battery to travel 1km) of approximately 0.22 kWh/km.
“When compared to the draft IRP’s overall projections for e-mobility, Zero Carbon Charge’s projections show that the demand on the grid will be far greater,” it said. For example, by 2034, its projections predicted the demand created by passenger EVs would have hit 10 Terawatt-hours (TWh), whereas the IRP predicts less than half that, at around 5 TWh.
In 2050, its projections showed that the demand created by passenger EVs would be just more than 60 TWh, while the IRP’s projection was around 10 TWh less, at just more than 50 TWh.
Zero CC said that when the increased demand was viewed against other matters raised in the draft IRP, first, that power outages would probably continue until 2028 and, second, that there would be a delay in the decommissioning of coal-fired power stations until there was a stable supply of electricity in the country, three things became apparent:
South Africa’s national, coal-fired grid, would not to be able to manage the demands imposed on it by the mass charging of EVs – even if one used the conservative e-mobility demand projections contained in the draft IRP.
Coal-powered EVs would not help South Africa achieve a Just Energy Transition and its net zero targets by 2050.
“Research undertaken by Zero CC shows that an EV charged with Eskom’s coal-fired electricity emits 5.3 metric tons of carbon emissions in a year. This is significantly more than a petrol vehicle that, on average, emits 4.4 metric tons of carbon emissions in a year if driven over the same distance,” it said.
The only way to minimise load shedding and reduce carbon emissions was for EVs to be powered independently of Eskom’s grid, Zero CC noted.
As part of Zero Ce’s submission to the DMRE, it said it had presented four scenarios that showed how off-grid EV charging could alleviate the burden on the grid.