You can run up to 1.3 million diesel-powered cars for one year with the R21.4 billion that Eskom spent on diesel in the 12 months ending March 2023 to run its open-cycle gas turbines in an attempt to stave off record levels of load-shedding.
This diesel budget was a shocking 114% more than the R10 billion the state-owned power utility spent a year before, reported Bloomberg.
Eskom blames the massive increase in spending on “higher-than-budgeted volumes and higher prices,” it said.
Over 900 million litres of diesel burnt
At inland rates, diesel 50ppm started at R19.55/litre in March 2022, reached an all-time high of R25.53/litre in July 2022, dipped back down to R21.41/litre in February 2023, and ended March 2023 at R21.72/litre.
Over the 12 months’ fluctuations, the average price for the propellant worked out to R23.02/litre.
Assuming Eskom paid the market rate over the entire year, a topic which has been hotly disputed in recent months, the R21.4-billion sum would have been good for approximately 929,626,412 litres of diesel.
If we consider that the average person on local roads travels around 1,000km a month, it equates to 12,000km of driving per year.
By averaging out the consumptions of five popular vehicles on the market in different body styles, we can estimate how much fuel we will need for the average diesel car per annum.
The models taken for the comparison include:
- BMW 118d – 4.7l/100km
- Ford Everest 2.0 bi-turbo – 7.5l/100km
- Mercedes-Benz C220d – 4.7l/100km
- Renault Duster 1.5dCi – 5.1l/100km
- Toyota Hilux Double Cab 2.8 GD-6 – 7.4l/100km
The mean diesel burn rate of these vehicles comes out to 5.9l/100km, resulting in a yearly fuel usage of 708 litres for a total travel distance of 12,000km.
From this, we can calculate that it’s possible to run 1,313,032 diesel cars for one year with 929 million litres of the liquid gold.
If we want to be a bit more realistic – because let’s face it almost no car gets the manufacturer’s claimed fuel usage – let’s bump the average figure up by two litres to 7.9l/100km.
With this more rational reading, we’ll now consume 948 litres of diesel per year, which suggests that it’s still feasible to power a staggering 980,619 oil burners for 12 months with the amount of diesel Eskom evaporated to keep the lights on.
This means that between 7.7% and 10.3% of the 12.7 million-plus vehicles on South Africa’s roads could have been given free refills between March 2022 and 2023 with Eskom’s diesel bill.
Keyword: How many cars you can run for 1 year on Eskom’s R21-billion diesel bill