South Africa’s electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has put forward a range of proposals to address the country’s ongoing energy crisis, including the need for more state funding and emissions exemptions at coal-fired power plants.
Also read: Code red: Eskom’s probable risk scenario for the next 39 weeks
Ramokgopa has outlined these measures as a means to address the daily blackouts that have severely impacted the nation’s economy.
Eskom is currently struggling due to financial constraints, with Ramokgopa stating that the company will have to seek funding from external sources to invest in its capital equipment.
These proposals will be submitted to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet later this month.
As reported by Timeslive, Ramokgopa has highlighted the challenging choice facing authorities – to either provide additional fiscal support to save the economy, or to protect the nation’s balance sheet and risk the collapse of the South African economy.
Ramokgopa stated that an estimate of the required cost of addressing the power-plant refurbishments is currently being compiled, as the country continues to experience rotational blackouts since 2008 due to Eskom’s inability to meet demand from an unreliable fleet of coal-fired plants.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced measures over the past year to address the energy crisis, including doubling wind power purchases from private contractors to 3 200MW in a recent round of bids, none of these projects were selected because they could not be connected.
Ramokgopa has spent the past two weeks visiting power plants to improve Eskom’s plant performance, reduce outages and accelerate the procurement of additional generation capacity.
He highlighted a range of constraints on maximising the use of installed capacity, including the cap on emissions and suggested a temporary exemption on pollution controls and some environmental damage may need to be accepted to support the economy.
Ramokgopa has called for additional funding from alternative sources as Eskom is currently struggling due to financial constraints.
Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has stated that addressing the energy crisis is crucial to securing additional foreign investment.
Patel emphasised the importance of cutting the energy problem in order to inject confidence in the investor community. The country’s annual conference is set to take place next week, where Ramaphosa will invite investors to commit money to the country.
Also read:
National state of disaster over South Africa’s power crisis revoked
Picture: Kgosientsho Ramokgopa / Facebook