Eskom will on an urgent basis in the next three months accelerate efforts to add new generation capacity to its faltering grid.
The intervention was among a raft of energy security plans for the country announced by president Cyril Ramaphosa during an address to the nation on Monday evening.
“A number of our neighbouring countries in Southern Africa, such as Botswana and Zambia, have more electricity capacity than they require. Eskom will now import power from these countries through the Southern African Power Pool arrangement. with excess capacity, to acquire spares and equipment from original equipment manufacturers and indeed the resources to increase the funding of the maintenance budget.”
“Furthermore, as the president announced, Eskom has already released land with grid connections for long-term leases by independent power producers, with more to follow in the near future.” “We welcome this plan. The alternative – declaring an energy emergency – would have been a substantially weaker solution. In the execution of this plan, the President will have to get various government departments and Ministers to work together and play their part. By declaring an emergency, all parliamentary oversight and procurement procedures could have been sidestepped.”
This is a key requirement – although new private sector generation will replace Eskom’s ageing coal fire powerplant over a 15 to 25-year time horizon, the country is still very much dependent on the output from the Eskom fleet.By doubling Bid Window 5 of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer’s Programme, an additional 2 600MW can be connected to the grid within the next 18 to 24 months.
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