The energy minister has long advocated against the full involvement of private companies in the energy sector and went so far as to suggest a second state-owned power utility to compete with Eskom.
Mantashe has also actively opposed certain aspects of private power production, including increasing the embedded generation from independent power producers to 100MW.
Ramaphosa said government’s decision to raise the licencing threshold to 100MW — the very aspect Mantashe had opposed — had unlocked a pipeline of more than 80 confirmed private sector projects with a combined capacity of over 6,000MW. He failed — or refused — to remove the red tape for IPP investment. The South African Independent Power Producers Association has argued that 5,000MW to 10,000MW of generation capacity could be built within two years if IPPs could get a waiver on power purchase agreements.
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