Progress made to end load shedding
The Presidency says progress has been made on various front
in the struggle to end the country's energy crisis.
It released an update on Saturday on interventions President Cyril Ramaphosa promised six months ago to combat load-shedding.
The update comes amid continuous load shedding - with stage 6 implemented for a period of time due to the high number of breakdowns at power stations across the country.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya says addressing the ongoing shortfall in electricity remains the government's top priority.
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"The president has further instructed law enforcement agencies to ramp up efforts to protect electricity infrastructure.
"A special meeting of the National Security Council will be convened in the next week to receive a report on operations underway to disrupt criminal syndicates and address theft and sabotage at several power stations."
The progress update released on Saturday outlined some of the steps taken:
- Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act has been amended to remove the licensing requirement for generation projects, which will significantly accelerate private investment.
- Since the licensing threshold was first raised to 100 MW, the pipeline of private sector projects has grown to more than 100 projects with over 9000 MW of capacity. The first of these large-scale projects is expected to connect to the grid by the end of this year.
- The NECOM has instructed departments to cut red tape and streamline regulatory processes for energy projects, including reducing the timeframe for environmental authorisations.
- A new Ministerial determination has been published for 14771 MW of new generation capacity from wind, solar and battery storage to accelerate further bid windows.
- An additional 300 MW has been imported through the Southern African Power Pool, and negotiations are underway to secure a potential 1,000 MW from neighbouring countries starting this year.
- Eskom has developed and launched a programme to purchase power from companies with available generation capacity through a standard offer. The first contracts are expected to be signed in the coming weeks.
- A team of independent experts has been established to work closely with Eskom to diagnose the problems at poorly performing power stations and take action to improve plant performance.
