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Natural gas is burned to produce mechanical energy – usually in a gas turbine — which is then converted into electrical energy that can be distributed for use in homes, businesses, and industries. This is called “gas-to-power”.
Gas can play a critical role in providing flexible, rapid energy supply, particularly when there are unexpected changes in supply and demand. As more variable forms of renewable energy are integrated into South Africa’s power grid, the need for flexible, dispatchable capacity becomes even more critical.
There are three capacity factor archetypes for gas-to-power: peaking, mid merit and baseload:
At the moment, though, the sector in South Africa is under-developed and more work needs to be done to see how much additional gas is needed to ensure that the supply is “bankable” due to typically high variable costs.
The role that gas-to-power plays in the future power sector (peaking, mid-merit, or baseload) will depend on its technical, economic, and environmental features.
In the future, we might be able to switch gas power plants to use green hydrogen instead of natural gas. This change could help us meet our goals for reducing carbon emissions to net zero. Green hydrogen is made using renewable energy, so it doesn’t produce carbon pollution, making it a cleaner alternative.
Gas turbines have a high availability factor – more than 90%, in most cases – and no restriction on output duration. This makes them more flexible and efficient than other sources.
Gas-to-power facilities have very quick ramp rates and are able to supply power at short notice. Gas turbines also have relatively low fixed costs when compared to renewables and coal, but high variable costs – particularly the gas itself. And emissions? Although gas is a fossil fuel like diesel and coal, emissions from gas are 25% lower than diesel and 60% lower than coal.
The advantages of gas-to-power systems include relatively lower emissions of pollutants compared to coal and diesel, high efficiency, and the ability to quickly ramp up and down to meet changing electricity demands.
Scaling up gas could increase our energy security and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but it will be an expensive exercise and a clear minimum demand required to ensure commercial viability of gas supply is required.
We need a clearer sense of what the options are for expansion, and how this will affect the broad supply of power. We will also need to look at the commercial viability including the long-term prospects for gas-to-power such a move from natural gas to green hydrogen.
Today South Africa consumes ~180 Petajoules (PJ) per annum of gas, mainly in the synthetic fuels sector.
Currently, gas demand is clustered in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
Taking a multi-sectoral lens, meaning using gas for industry, transport, synfuels and electricity, South Africa’s gas demand could range from 270 – 480 PJ per year by 2034.
The Pande and Temane gasfields, operated by Sasol in Mozambique, are South Africa’s only major gas supply today (via the ROMPCO pipeline). This supply is at risk with reserves declining from 2026.
There are several options for further gas supply, including domestic gas (onshore and offshore), regional gas and imported Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) in South Africa. Each of these options must be assessed on merit requiring thorough evaluation based on environmental, economic, and logistical factors to determine their suitability for South Africa’s energy needs.
We have limited gas-to-power capacity: Eskom runs four open-cycle gas turbines and there are two independent plants: one in the Eastern Cape and a second in KwaZulu Natal, but they are all diesel-fired at this stage.
South Africa’s electricity supply is going to be less flexible – in other words, harder to change or adapt – as coal-fired power stations are decommissioned and wind and solar rollout is accelerated.
As a larger share of daytime power is provided by solar, the power system will need additional flexibility in mornings and evenings, provided by storage (pumped hydro, battery electric) or flexible thermal plants.
The role that gas-to-power plays in the future power sector (peaking, mid-merit, or baseload) is going to depend on its technical, economic, and environmental features: how flexible and efficient the supply could be, the balance between low fixed costs and high variable costs, and its emissions profile. Gas could be used to #energisemzansi, we just need to do more work on understanding it’s potential role in the integrated energy system.
Let’s discuss the possibilities of gas and
#EnergiseMzansi
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