Energy minister Gwede Mantashe says that a new second power generation company would fall under his department and generate electricity alongside Eskom.<\/p>\n
He told the Sunday Times that a move to renewables was more “ideological than technical”. Were it not for this ideology, the country would already have Karpowership\u2019s floating power plants up and running, he said.<\/p>\n
President Cyril Ramaphosa said earlier in the week that the creation of a new energy-producing system would assist in alleviating the risk posed by the failings of the current system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we look at other countries like China, it has a number of state-owned electricity generating companies that compete amongst themselves to bring prices down,\u201d Ramaphosa said in a speech to a meeting of the South African Communist Party on Friday. \u201cThat is a future that we should begin to imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mantashe told the media that a second state-owned company would need more power stations to be built. \u201cSo what we are suggesting \u2014 it\u2019s not a decision yet \u2014 is let\u2019s have a second generation company of the state, and that generation company must focus on baseload, and there must be a build programme for power stations,\u201d Mantashe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t allow power stations to only hear decommission, we must also have a build programme, and we think that if Eskom has no capacity, let\u2019s start a second generation company.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a generation company because transmission will be an independent company which does wheeling and a marketplace for energy. It is at the centre, it can source energy from anywhere, including the private sector, it can source it and wheel it,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n
Mantashe said this second company would be established in his department. \u201cAll that excites me is that the president begins to talk to me. It means he is warming to the idea, and that to me is a call for me to act with speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
New plans for more reliable electricity<\/strong><\/p>\n Eskom chief executive officer, Andre de Ruyter, said South Africa could see the end of load shedding by the end of next week.<\/p>\n \u201cTowards the end of the coming week, we should emerge from load shedding,\u201d said de Ruyter at a walking tour of the Tutuka power station on Saturday (16 July), accompanied by the president.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already lifted our indication for load shedding going forward; we\u2019ve got a couple of big units returning, so that\u2019s positive news,\u201d he said. De Ruyter said Eskom expects load shedding to become less likely by the end of the month as the troubled nuclear plant Koeberg 2 comes back online.<\/p>\n The power station is set to provide a necessary 920 MW to the national grid; however, de Ruyter added that to curb load shedding for good, additional capacity is still required as the system is currently unreliable and unpredictable.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa told journalists that he had met with various managers from different power stations to get further insight into the problems faced. The president, meanwhile, is expected to announce a new plan to build a cleaner and more reliable electricity grid soon.<\/p>\n The Sunday Times reported that the president is considering several key proposals to resolve the country’s energy crisis, including:<\/p>\n These proposals have primarily come from the National Planning Commission, which has called for the government to prioritise adding 10,000MW of wind and solar power and 5,000MW of battery storage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe message is clear: this is no time for business as usual. We need to act boldly to make load-shedding a thing of the past,” said the president.<\/p>\n\n
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