Power supply measures spark hope, encouragement among organisations

Cape Town - Businesses and civil organisations have welcomed the new measures introduced to deal with the country’s energy crisis, saying the government should have been so much further down the road with many of these interventions already.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night laid out the new measures, which include procuring power from private players such as mines, paper mills and shopping malls, as well as from neighbouring countries in the SADC region to stabilise South Africa’s power supply.

Over the next 12 months, Eskom will increase its budget towards extensive maintenance of these power stations, Ramaphosa announced, adding that the red tape around procurement of maintenance spares and parts would be relaxed.

“One of the challenges that Eskom has faced has been the shortage of skilled personnel and engineers. The utility is now recruiting skilled personnel, including former senior Eskom plant managers and engineers from the private sector. These skilled personnel will support various personnel and help to ensure that world-class operating and maintenance procedures are reinstated.

“Over the next three months, Eskom will take additional actions to add new generation capacity to the grid on an urgent basis,” he said.

Greenpeace Africa's climate and energy campaigner Thandile Chinyavanhu said the organisation welcomed the announcement.

“We have been calling for this for some time. It allows South Africans, who are able, to (take) the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the end of load shedding. After years of campaigning, we welcome the decision to remove the arbitrary threshold for renewable energy generation.

“South Africa has not even begun to exhaust its renewable energy potential, and this is a big step towards that end. We also know that there is massive potential for job creation in a just transition to renewable energy, and South Africa’s unemployed youth are eager to join the workforce,” Chinyavanhu said.

Business Unity South Africa chief executive Cas Coovadia said it was hoped the energy plans would be implemented with focus and speed.

“Business has consistently indicated its readiness to help fast track these energy crisis interventions and look forward to collaborating with the president’s National Energy Crisis Committee which will focus on driving implementation of this excellent package of interventions,” Coovadia said.

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) legal project manager Brendan Slade said the proposal was encouraging.

“The president’s proposals are very encouraging, such as the incentives for greater uptake of rooftop solar and removal of red tape for embedded generation. This is good news for large-scale wheeling power projects and also for domestic, commercial, industrial and mining solar PV and battery storage projects. What we now need to see is more detail of these plans and firm deadlines. In particular, we would like to see the updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) before the end of this year.

“We look forward to seeing the National Treasury’s plan for Eskom’s debt burden, which has been promised for a long time. Outa hopes that this long-awaited urgency to address the energy crisis will not be used to cut corners to bring in disastrous contracts, such as the proposed Karpowership contract.“

Cape Times