After exposing the “new” Pam Golding stats as a marketing gimmick, stats guru Krzysztof Wojciechowicz is back with another brilliant illustration for us: this time data showing why Eskom’s nightmare was brewing for years. The information is publicly available (SA Reserve Bank) and one must presume that those paid the big bucks to assess the data and take decisions would have been shown these rather obvious graphs. The real question is why they ignored the obvious? – AH
By Krzysztof Wojciechowicz*
The highest scare of outages had passed away some time ago and now only occasionally this problem is mentioned, like in your interview with Andrew Etzinger. But the problem still remains and may repeat again – at least that’s what statistics are telling us. The chart below (Figure 1) clearly shows that the problem had started in 1982 when index of capital stock in electricity sector suddenly turned down and continued dwindling until year 2005.
Capital stock represents physical size of infrastructure of this sector (power stations, machinery, etc). At the same time production of electricity remained unaffected and continued growing until 2007. But it is obvious that this upward trend was possible only by squeezing every drop of juice from the outdated and exhausted infrastructure. We all remember the crisis which came that year. Figure 1 illustrates the trends of both variables. But only in their absolute values, without taking into consideration the growing economy and population.
The next chart (Figure 2) shows the implications of the growing economy. Here we see the same problem, but in aggravated form, adjusted for population growth.
The infrastructure of the electricity sector, as measured by the head of population, only in year 2010 attained the level of 1983. Per capita electricity production is now still slightly below 1997 level and what worse, it indicates a downward trend since 2007. It would indicate that the existing capital stock (infrastructure) is still not adequate.
Figure 3 (below) again shows the electricity trends in terms of per capita growth. The dark line represents the dynamics of gross fixed investments in the electricity sector.
What was the cause of considerable drop (from the index of 110 to 70) of electricity capital stock in years 1982 – 2005 ? In the years 1946 – 1982 the investment index shot up from the level of 25 to 250 to support corresponding growth of per capita production from the index level of 20 to 100. In the year 2000, per capita investments dropped to 1946 level. And only in 2013 they attained 1982 level and don’t show any increase since 2010. This is only a statistical presentation which doesn’t touch technical matters. But the figures present not a very encouraging picture.
NOTE: The data comes from the SA Reserve Bank. The Capital Stock and Investment figures include electricity, gas and water. However, electricity is their main component and they can be safely used as a proxy for electricity sector.
* Statistics guru Krzysztof Wojciechowicz retired as Director Statistical Analysis at the DTI. You can reach him atkrzysztofw
