One of the unions that represent workers at Eskom believes SA’s energy crisis can be alleviated by “small power producers applying in their hundreds for generation permits”.
Solidarity, one of three recognised trade unions at the state-owned power utility, also announced plans to get involved in the generation and selling of electricity.
The organisation is advocating for the private sector to solve the country’s energy emergency and says if South Africans “continue to place our hope in Eskom and the state it would result in a power depression”.
According to Solidarity, the large-scale entry of small power producers into power generation is needed to resolve the country’s power crisis. “We call on developers, shopping malls, big companies, resident associations, entrepreneurs, major farmers and others to submit applications for the generation, distribution and sale of power,” Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said.
The trade union itself is to get involved in power generation through its majority shareholding in the property investment company Kanton.
“Our members’ jobs and income are being destroyed on a large scale as a result of the power crisis. The biggest act of job protection we can undertake right now is to do everything possible to feed power into the system,” Hermann said.
Solidarity announced it will establish a help desk for applicants applying for independent power producer permits and it wants to get involved in training to meet the “enormous skills shortage in the field of renewable energy and small-scale power generation”.
After almost two weeks of intermittent stage 6 load-shedding, which has brought South Africans to boiling point and placed the country at risk of falling into a technical recession, the National Planning Commission (NPC), chaired by minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele, called for the implementation of an emergency plan to end load-shedding in two years.
The NPC suggested that 10,000MW of new renewable generation capacity and 5,000MW of battery storage capacity could be rapidly constructed and commissioned over the next two to three years by removing various obstacles. This includes scrapping the current registration processes at the National Energy Regulator of SA, which are delaying the implementation of projects, and replacing them with online registration.
During a media briefing convened by a group of civil society organisations, energy analyst Chris Yelland, MD of EE Business Intelligence, and Hilton Trollip, an independent consultant in energy research, said they agree with the NPC’s plan to quickly add new renewable energy to the grid.
Yelland said he supports the idea of the “[government doing] everything possible to unlock the current blockages in the policy, regulatory and planning frameworks of SA and to set up something along the lines of an executive council that would be empowered to lift any stumbling blocks, and to put in place new regulations on a temporary basis, to deal with this current energy emergency in the short term”.
In line with some of the suggestions tabled by the NPC, 16 civil society organisations issued an urgent call to mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe on Thursday to allow for the immediate procurement of all the outstanding renewable energy and battery storage that is provided for in the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 (IRP 2019).
In a statement, the organisations, which include the Koeberg Alert Alliance, the African Climate Alliance, the SA Climate Network and the Organisation for Undoing Tax Abuse, said Mantashe needs to exercise his ministerial power, according to section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act, to issue a determination for large-scale new electricity generating capacity to be built.
Through previous ministerial determinations, the licensing threshold for independent power producers was raised from 1MW to 100MW and procurement notices were issued for 6,800MW of renewable energy and 510MW of battery storage.
Civil society organisations now want similar ministerial determinations for the outstanding 1,575MW of battery storage and 13,600MW of renewable energy still needed to reach the totals called for in IRP 2019.
“From the determination itself, it is clear that the issuing of determinations does not need to follow the timetable set out in IRP 2019 in cases of urgency related to energy security. The current IRP is widely acknowledged to be in need of updating. However, urgent action is needed now before updating the IRP is completed,” the organisations said.
Peter Becker, a spokesperson for the Koeberg Alert Alliance, highlighted the human suffering that is still being caused by the electricity crisis and load-shedding, as well as the cost to the economy, which is running into billions.
“Renewable energy and storage have been shown to be far quicker to build than other forms of generation. If minister Mantashe acts with urgency and carries the best interest of South Africans at heart, he should do everything in his power to add more electricity to the grid as quickly as possible.”
There is an urgent need for him to sign determinations for large-scale wind, solar and storage capacity, Becker said.
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