South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

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Column | South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone, by Busi Mavuso

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was devastating. I have been told of companies forced to lay off staff because they simply couldn’t open their doors. Those with generators couldn’t get diesel to fill them fast enough. Those on batteries found them running dead.

There is only one way to ensure we do not face such occurrences again: we must diversify the sources of electricity in South Africa. We cannot rely on a single state utility any longer. We have known this for some time and had we acted more vigorously sooner, experiences like last week could have been avoided. We have the right ingredients – the private sector can now build plants of up to 100MW without a licence.

We have made progress, but it is too slow. One very good intervention has been the decision of Eskom to make available the vast tracts of land it owns in Mpumalanga to independent power producers. Much of this land already has the regulatory approvals needed to produce electricity and is close to grid connection points.

There is also an acceleration in other private producers registering new plants with energy regulator Nersa. The regulator has so far approved 18 amid an “avalanche” of applications. The last approvals were done in 19 days from receipt of the application. That is a positive sign that red tape has been removed from the process of private generation.The signs are clear, then, that the future electricity market will be a diverse one.

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