By Sunday Elijah
Deputy President David Mabuza says the Eskom Political Task Team continues to provide support to the power utility to ensure that it runs the grid optimally, while mitigating against load shedding.
The Deputy President said this when he responded to oral questions at a sitting of the National Assembly in Cape Town on Thursday.
“The Eskom Political Task Team continues to provide support to ensure that Eskom meets its obligation of providing electricity.
“The support includes ensuring that Eskom, in the short-term, is able to implement a credible and transparent maintenance programme to ensure that power generation plants operate at an optimal level to reduce the negative impact of electricity supply disruptions,” he said.
The Deputy President said these measures, along with work being done to add generation onto the power grid through independent power producers, are aimed at addressing the currently load shedding and future power generation needs.
“However, we must make a point that Eskom’s load shedding is not as a result of limited market role for alternative power generation, but mainly as a result of breakdowns encountered from the old and ageing generation infrastructure.”
Government creates conducive environment for alternative power producers
The Deputy President said, meanwhile, that government has created a regulatory environment that is very conducive to opening up the market for alternative power generation producers.
“Within the framework of the Integrated Resource Plan, alternative energy generation measures are being explored and implemented to augment electricity supply and improve the stability of the grid.
“In addition, the President announced the amendment of schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act of 2000, increasing the embedded generation threshold from 1MW to 100MW.”
The Deputy President said in this regard, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has amended the electricity regulations of new generation capacity, and has put together processes that should be followed to ensure the requests by municipalities for owned generation are speedily attended to.
“Currently, 292 small-scale generators have registered with NERSA and have the total generation capacity of 187MW.
“The Independent Power Producers office is processing offers by Independent Power Producers for approval by Eskom and National Treasury.
“The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has issued determinations on the required new generation capacity in concurrence with NERSA.
“The determination made resulted in the procurement of 7309MW from renewable energy. Most of these power plants are already operational, with less than 400MW still under construction.”
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