{"id":149777,"date":"2017-01-10T13:34:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T11:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=149777"},"modified":"2017-01-10T13:34:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T11:34:29","slug":"eskom-delaying-r50-billion-renewable-energy-plan-to-push-nuclear-goals-sarec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/149777\/eskom-delaying-r50-billion-renewable-energy-plan-to-push-nuclear-goals-sarec\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom delaying R50 billion renewable energy plan to push nuclear goals: Sarec"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Energy has delayed its draft energy plans,\u00a0leaving the renewable energy sector in a R50 billion limbo, South African Renewable Energy Council (Sarec) chairperson Brenda Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>In an <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/Eskom\/windsolar-sector-mull-eskom-court-bid-while-new-energy-plan-delayed-20170110\">interview with Fin24<\/a><\/strong>, Martin said that the DoE had scheduled to\u00a0close public comments on the proposed draft Integrated Energy Plan and the Integrated Resource Plan on 15 February\u00a02017, but has now extended this date to 31 March 2017, &#8220;following requests from a number of stakeholders&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She noted that Eskom had also previously refused to issue final budget quotes to preferred bidders of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) Procurement Programme &#8211; effectively putting a combined R50\u00a0billion in investment into the country on hold.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(This) is ludicrous when considering our current economic climate&#8230;All political sentiment suggests that there is full support for this to happen, so we really are confused about why is it that Eskom is just digging its heels in,\u201d Martins\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p>In the same interview,\u00a0Sarec director Mark Pickering accused Eskom of &#8220;hoarding cash&#8221; for its nuclear build, which he said it clearly intends to pursue.<\/p>\n<p>Pickering claimed\u00a0that pressure was being put on Treasury in many forms to finance nuclear, and it was the &#8216;elephant in the room&#8217; that was not being addressed in meetings between the two groups.<\/p>\n<p>Sarec was considering legal options on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, acting Eskom CEO Matshela Koko said that Sarec was ignoring the fact that, like nuclear,\u00a0any\u00a0ongoing growth in power purchase agreements with independent power producers &#8220;should be rolled out at a scale and pace that the country can afford&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He said that Sarec\u00a0was pushing the notion that\u00a0Eskom is engaged in a sustained attack on the renewable energy programme, while &#8220;turning a blind eye&#8221; to the impact of renewable IPP costs on tariffs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/145183\/guptas-eskom-still-not-budging-on-r2-billion-coal-fine-payment\/\" target=\"_blank\">Guptas, Eskom still not budging on R2 billion coal fine payment<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Energy has delayed its draft energy plans, leaving the renewable energy sector in a R50 billion limbo, South African Renewable Energy Council chairperson Brenda Martin has revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":149785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-149777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149777"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149803,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149777\/revisions\/149803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}