In anticipation of a pending announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa about interventions to tackle SA’s energy crisis, Business Unity SA (Busa) has urged the president to include in this plan clear direction and deadlines that reflect the seriousness and urgency of the situation.
Busa said it was deeply concerned that if the debilitating load-shedding experienced over the past month was not remedied urgently, the country and economy would continue to be damaged by negative growth, further ratings downgrades and a deeper decline in consumer and investor confidence for many years to come.
“We urgently need government to create the regulatory and administrative environment that will clear the path to energy security,” said Busa CEO Cas Coovadia.
According to the organisation, some of the interventions that are urgently needed include removing caps on registering self-generation projects; establishing an emergency feed-in tariff framework to enable Eskom to buy power from existing generators; and urgently tackling sabotage at Eskom and the theft of copper cable.
Echoing some of the proposals tabled by the National Planning Commission last week as part of an emergency plan to end load-shedding in two years, Busa also called for the suspension of local content rules until the energy crisis has been averted and doing away with much of the red tape that slows down the approval and licensing of new generation projects.
“The ultimate objective is to add 15,000MW of new capacity, mainly renewables, to the grid, as well as 4,000MW of battery capacity by the end of 2024,” Coovadia said.
Busa’s statement late on Thursday came as Ramaphosa finalises what his office calls an “energy master plan”, which will incorporate timelines on when SA expects an end to the frequent blackouts.
‘Emergency response’
“We are not consulting into paralysis,” said Vincent Magwenya, the spokesperson for Ramaphosa, adding that the plan will be “an emergency response that “will also speak to cutting the red tape”.
Business Day reported on Monday that among the measures being considered to expedite licensing and permitting processes for new generation capacity projects was declaring an energy emergency.
The blackouts, some of the worst since they first started in 2008, have triggered calls from within the ANC, SACP, DA and EFF for public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and Eskom CEO André de Ruyter to be held to account.
But Ramaphosa does not think firing people in the middle of a crisis will help, his office said. “If institutions are destabilised now, it will take us back. To start tinkering in the middle of a crisis — it is going to deepen the crisis,” Magwenya said.
On Tuesday, officials from the department of mineral resources & energy said an updated Integrated Resource Plan for SA’s electricity infrastructure development would be ready by the end of 2023. Apart from setting out a longer-term strategy for the country’s future energy mix, this plan would also provide proposals to solve the immediate electricity deficit.
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