Gov Opens Electricity Market to deal with Electricity Crisis

Date: 13/02/2023 | Posted in Lifestyle | News | South Africa

Electricity Crisis in South Africa The Presidency says it is pulling all the stops to deal with the electricity crisis including opening up the market and securing emergency power by Eskom.

Head of project management in the Presidency Rudi Dicks said on Sunday part of the immediate need was to get more megawatts onto the grid.

In his State of the Nation address President Cyril Ramaphosa said they were fast-tracking measures to deal with the energy crisis.

He said they wanted to get at least 9 000MW from other sources of energy by the end of the year.

Dicks said they wanted to make sure that they get all key stakeholders in the energy sector to reduce the power outages.

“It is important to stress one area, the ability of Operation Vulindlela to open the electricity market space, particularly at the generation level and this was through the schedule 2 amendment, which initially started in 2021 when Minister Gwede Mantashe promulgated that amendment of schedule 2 to raise the cap from 1MW to 100MW.

“That has significantly opened up the private space. There are now potential 104 projects exceeding 9 000MW,” said Dicks.

This was one of the many interventions they were making to reduce levels of load shedding in the country.