South Africa's Power Grid Faces Capacity Cliff with Gas-to-Power Solution

The South African power grid is facing a significant capacity cliff between 2029 and March 2030, with a loss of approximately 9.5 GW of dispatchable baseload capacity.

This decline is driven by coal retirements under Minimum Emission Standards deadlines and the expiry of the 1.15 GW Cahora Bassa import contract.

The Integrated Resource Plan's solution to this problem is to add 6,000 MW of gas-to-power capacity by 2030, using imported liquefied natural gas.

However, this solution shifts the risk from a domestic supply problem to an imported price problem, with the added vulnerability of currency exposure.