Could a Green New Deal clean up Africa’s dirtiest electricity grid?

Civil society organisations in South Africa are proposing a post-WW2-style economic recovery programme to steer energy transformation for the state utility that echoes Roosevelt’s New Deal in the USA. But the country has been thrown into an even deeper energy crisis, following an explosion at one of the country’s newly-minted power stations. Could this make the ‘Green New Eskom’ idea even more relevant? News of the explosion at one of South Africa’s new coal power stations came through at close to midnight on a Monday, on a public holiday in early August. The incident, which happened during a routine maintenance procedure, crippled one generator and will cost the grid around 797 megawatts (MW) of power. Energy experts say it will take years to complete the repairs and replace the lost electricity. This comes at a time when rolling blackouts are already being used to manage the electricity shortfall from an aging, unmaintained, and failing grid. The explosion comes just one week after the facility — the Medupi power plant, which government has billed as one …