South Africa to embrace private power generation

• 4 years ago (2020-01-15)
• David Flin

Africa 306 Coal 282 Renewables 757

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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the country will encourage efforts by businesses to generate their own power. Ramaphosa is under pressure over nationwide power cuts that have damaged the South African economy.

State-owned utility Eskom generates more than 90 per cent of the country’s electricity, but regularly struggles to meet demand because of breakdowns at its aging coal-fired power plants. Many companies, especially power-intense companies such as mines, have said that they want to build their own renewable energy plants to reduce their reliance on Eskom, but have not been able to secure the necessary regulatory approvals.

Ramaphosa said: “For the first time, we are now saying let us have self-generation. We have opened up a new era that says we are now embracing the fact that there are those companies and households that want to generate their own energy. We cannot stop technology, we cannot stop the future from arriving.”

Roger Baxter, Chief Executive of the Minerals Council, said that mining companies could build between 500MW and 1500MW of their own generating capacity over the next few years if regulations were eased.