{"id":658287,"date":"2023-01-22T08:24:35","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T06:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=658287"},"modified":"2023-01-22T08:24:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T06:24:35","slug":"plans-for-new-private-power-company-in-south-africa-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/658287\/plans-for-new-private-power-company-in-south-africa-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans for new private power company in South Africa: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Civil action group AfriForum says it has plans to start its own power generation company.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/citypress\/news\/afriforum-starts-power-company-20230121\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">City Press<\/a> the group said it is fed up with South Africa&#8217;s decade-long battle with load shedding &#8211; which has caused significant disruptions to daily life and economic activity &#8211; and has engaged in discussions with specialist venture capital firm C5 Capital which invests in nuclear energy, among other things.<\/p>\n<p>The group plans to develop a nuclear peddle-bed reactor &#8211; compact enough to fit on a truck and supply a whole city with reliable power for up to 40 years, said City Press.<\/p>\n<p>It noted that South African-born C5 Captial CEO Andr\u00e9 Pienaar and his companies have already started building such a reactor in the state of Washington in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>AfriForum&#8217;s role will reportedly be to facilitate the investments and expertise needed for the development of the reactors.<\/p>\n<p>AfriForum&#8217;s plan to successfully introduce a nuclear power company to South Africa is part of its three-stage comprehensive power plan, known as Project AfriEnergie &#8211; which was presented in November.<\/p>\n<p>The stages detailed in the plan include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stage one<\/strong> &#8211; is to help consumers become independent from Eskom, including mounting a court case against the National Energy Regulator of SA.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stage two<\/strong> &#8211; is to free towns, cities and communities from municipal electricity. An example is Mafube Local Municipality in the Free State, where privately owned utility business Rural Maintenance has successfully managed the town&#8217;s electricity supply for the past ten years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stage Three<\/strong> &#8211; establishing an electricity generation company to provide a long-term power solution through nuclear generation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A plan of this scale comes as South Africa started 2023 by experiencing stage 6 load-shedding for almost two weeks. South Africa has experienced load shedding every day of the year so far.<\/p>\n<p>The consequences of load shedding are far-reaching and affect nearly every aspect of life in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses and industries are hit hard, with many forced to shut down operations or reduce production during load-shedding hours. This results in lost revenue and job losses.<\/p>\n<p>Load shedding also affects essential services such as hospitals, schools and transportation, putting lives at risk and causing significant disruptions to education and health care.<\/p>\n<p>The government has taken steps to address the load shedding crisis, including increasing investment in renewable energy and independent power producers and implementing measures to improve Eskom&#8217;s efficiency and financial stability.<\/p>\n<p>However, these efforts have yet to fully address the issue, and load-shedding is still a regular occurrence in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Pienaar told City Press that\u00a0the Washington nuclear reactor is working and could start generating power as soon as 2027.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although developing a modular reactor is expensive, the costs can be offset once it becomes operational,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Pienaar added while South Africa has a robust nuclear power ecosystem, the most challenging hurdle to overcome will be legislation, which stipulates that only government can generate nuclear power.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, both AfriForum and Pienaar believe that international investors and the local private sector will invest in developing such reactors &#8211; adding that the days of an energy monopoly such as Eskom&#8217;s are numbered.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/658285\/ramaphosas-plan-for-load-shedding-after-a-week-of-emergency-meetings\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Ramaphosa&#8217;s plan for load shedding after a week of emergency meetings<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A South African civil rights organisation has plans to develop small power generation modules that supply cities with power for up to 40 years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":653439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[5018,26],"class_list":["post-658287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-city-press","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658287","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=658287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658301,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658287\/revisions\/658301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}