Changing energy regulations will help stop load shedding in South Africa: DA
The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on government to review schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act, which it says will help bring an end to load shedding in South Africa.
The party said that the change will effectively allow for private energy generation in the country outside of the embattled state power utility Eskom. “We need to urgently open our grid to competition,” the party said.
It said that energy minister Gwede Mantashe must immediately ease the regulatory environment to allow for unlicenced generation up to 50MW, and announce bid window 5 of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
“If he is not prepared to do so, president Ramaphosa should take urgent steps to replace him,” it said.
The DA said that the immediate review and amendment of schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act will also allow for the expediting of the unbundling of Eskom, and prioritisation of the opening of the next and all future bid windows for the REIPPPP.
On Wednesday (10 March), Eskom announced that stage 2 load shedding will be implemented for the rest of the week.
The power cuts will continue until 23h00 on Friday night (12 March) and may continue over the weekend, the power utility said.
“There is a probability that load-shedding may be implemented at short notice should any further breakdowns occur before then,” Eskom said.
This load-shedding is attributed to continued poor performance at the Kusile, Duvha, and Tutuka power stations, as well as delays in returning some other units to service and continued breakdowns over the past week.
Eskom said it has had to extensively use its emergency generation reserves and these have been rapidly depleted.
“This period of load-shedding will be used to replenish the emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said.
The power utility currently has 6,212MW on planned maintenance and another 11,217MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns and delays.
“There is a high probability that load-shedding may continue to be implemented throughout the weekend, depending on plants returning to service from planned maintenance, as well as the levels of the emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said.
The power utility said it will continue to assess and communicate promptly as the situation changes.
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