South Africa: High Court Stops New Coal Capacity Plan

South Africa’s High Court has ruled that government plans for new coal-fired power capacity are unlawful as they violate the constitutional right to health.

The Government planned to seek 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired electricity capacity.

However , the plans have been challenged in court by three activists group who argued that new coal plants could lead to damages to public health.

The High Court held that the government plans and decisions to seek the procurement of new coal power are “unlawful and invalid,” Judge C.J. van der Westhuizen wrote in a ruling published on Wednesday and quoted by Bloomberg.

South Africa, one of the world’s largest coal producers and exporters, continues to rely on coal for a large part of its energy mix. Currently, some 85% of South Africa’s electricity is generated via coal-fired power stations.

South Africa could see an additional up to 50,000 deaths due to air pollution and billions of U.S. dollars in health costs if a proposal to delay the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants goes through, a Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said earlier this year.

In a 2023 report, CREA said that if the rate of decommissioning in the 2030s and 2040s is not accelerated from current plans, further delays to the decommissioning of other units would multiply the health impacts of the delay to 32,300 deaths from air pollution and economic costs of $40 billion (721 billion South African rands).

Crippled by an energy crisis for several years, South Africa is struggling to shut down coal plants, while it needs billions of U.S. dollars to boost the share of clean energy sources in its power mix.

South Africa is currently negotiating loan guarantees with its international partners in its $9.3-billion Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) program for energy investment.

The lack of loan guarantees has so far withheld the disbursement of much of the funds of the multi-billion-dollar partnership aimed at helping South Africa reduce its reliance on coal and cut carbon emissions.

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com