{"id":711774,"date":"2023-08-17T13:43:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=711774"},"modified":"2023-08-17T13:43:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:43:24","slug":"ramokgopa-working-on-solar-deal-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/711774\/ramokgopa-working-on-solar-deal-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramokgopa working on solar deal with China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s electricity minister said he expects to seal a deal with the Chinese government next week that will help solar-power installers in the African nation secure access to panels for projects needed to tackle its energy crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The matter will be discussed on the sidelines of a summit of leaders from the BRICS group of leading emerging-market powers that starts August 22 in Johannesburg, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in the city on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMyself and my peer from China will be concluding those agreements, and the timelines are really that we should be able to get significant investment into the ground in the next six months,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"y6Iu0yQzak\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/710336\/new-solar-and-inverter-loan-scheme-launches-in-south-africa\/\">New government solar and inverter loan scheme launches in South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;New government solar and inverter loan scheme launches in South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/710336\/new-solar-and-inverter-loan-scheme-launches-in-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=9zu8wtiXoi#?secret=y6Iu0yQzak\" data-secret=\"y6Iu0yQzak\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramokgopa travelled to China in June to meet six of the nation\u2019s biggest solar equipment manufacturers in a bid to smooth access to panels and counter persistent blackouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South African businesses and households are increasingly opting to reduce their reliance on the grid as state utility Eskom, which supplies more than 90% of the nation\u2019s electricity, imposes daily power cuts because its old and poorly maintained coal-fired plants can\u2019t meet demand. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minister said he is confident that load shedding will end and predicted that an additional 4,700 megawatts of power would be added to the grid in the next few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/711608\/south-africas-r50-billion-renewable-rail-plan-on-track\/\">South Africa\u2019s R50 billion renewable rail plan on track<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/711114\/here-is-the-expected-petrol-price-for-september-7\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s electricity minister is working on a deal with the Chinese government to secure more solar panels. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":670477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-711774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711774","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711782,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711774\/revisions\/711782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}