In August and September, Eskom will start reskilling programmes for its employees and local residents at Komati power station, the facility pioneering the transition from coal to renewables in Mpumalanga.
Blueprint for the just energy transition: Banks of solar panels are being erected around Komati’s old chimney stacks. Photo: Thabo Molelekwa
He added that a call would go out this week to invite locals to participate in soft skills training. “We want to start that by the end of this month, or at the absolute latest in early August,” he said.by Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism and Climate Home News in April 2023 found a major skills gap in coal-reliant communities in Mpumalanga and a lack of clarity on how funds for reskilling would be used.
“We’re not doing this in isolation, and it’s not limited to Eskom employees only,” Rajpaul said, referring to fears expressed by many people interviewed by Oxpeckers that only Eskom workers would benefit from the renewables transition.To make Komati’s transition possible, in November 2022 the World Bank approved a $497 million concessional loan facility to Eskom for the Komati repowering and repurposing project. Of this amount, $47.
According to Rajpaul, just under 10% of the total loan will be allocated to address community improvement initiatives. “This speaks to the agrivoltaics, the containerised microgrid manufacture, as well as the establishment of the training centres,” he said. “We acknowledge that a megawatt from renewables is not the same as a megawatt from coal,” Rajpaul said. “You cannot build all of the capacity, and it’s not our intention to replace all the capacity that the power station was generating, [but] it forms part of the bigger provincial initiative.”
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