South Africa wants to buy more private power to help end load shedding

South Africa is seeking additional electricity from private contractors as the government of Africa’s most industrialised nation moves to address longstanding power outages.

The government has asked the companies it previously contracted to supply electricity from privately-owned plants if they can sell more.

The latest program is designed to run for three years and may benefit renewable energy plants that already won the right to supply electricity.

The amount of power to be purchased is yet to be determined.

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy “confirms that it is implementing what is termed an additional megawatt program,” it said in a response to questions on Wednesday.

“This initiative is one of the many measures implemented by government to address the capacity shortage.”

South Africa has been hit by intermittent power outages for more than a decade because the state power utility, Eskom can’t meet demand.

The government this year tendered for 2,000 megawatts of power from any technology to be delivered by August next year and plans additional tenders for electricity produced from the sun, wind and natural gas.

Read: Eskom in wage fight with workers as load shedding hits