Eskom's "revised submission" to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), which is likely to be substantially lower that the version submitted in September, was delivered on Monday evening, with details to be made public by the State-owned utility on Tuesday.

Nersa told Engineering News Online that it had always anticipated that Eskom, which initially applied for an extension to the September 30, 2009, submission deadline, would submit "additional information" by the end of November.

In fact, Nersa's head of communication and stakeholder management Charles Hlebela said that the timelines for consultation and deliberation on the second multiyear price determination period, or MYPD2, had been designed to accommodate some revisions.

However, should these be "substantial" in nature, Hlebela indicated that Nersa might consider extending the period for public comment, which was also meant to have closed on Monday. But he said that it would be premature to say whether the new submission would definitely alter its already published consultation and approval timelines.

Under Nersa's approved timelines, public hearings were scheduled to take place across all provinces from January 11, 2010, to 22, 2010, with a final decision to be made on February 24.

PROJECT IMPACT

Engineering News Online understands that Eskom has been working on a new scenario, which could reduce the yearly request by ten percentage points, or more, when compared with the original request for increases of 45% a year for the three-year period from April 1, 2010, through to March 31, 2013.

However, it could possibly also highlight the energy-security risks associated with the lower request, which would probably lead to a significant delay in the construction of the R111-billion Kusile power plant, the first unit of which was meant to have come onstream in 2013.

Eskom has confirmed that a hard copy of the revised submission was to be delivered to Nersa by Monday night, but the utility said that it would not comment on the nature of the changes until the details were released at a media conference on Tuesday. The conference would be hosted by acting executive chairperson Mpho Makwana.

Engineering News Online understands that Eskom has been forced to moderate its unpopular application in light of a change of heart within government, which initially supported a relatively swift transition towards cost-reflective tariffs.

Government, it has emerged, has been convinced by arguments suggesting that: such steep increases would have devastating economic impacts; that the future demand trajectory might no longer be as steep post the recession as initially forecast; and that the remaining supply-side gaps should be closed by independent power producers (IPPs).

However, few details have emerged as to what guarantees these potential IPPs would receive to entice them to proceed with their programmes, all of which have been frustrated thus far.

In fact, Eskom, which is still designated as the single buyer of private power, placed its various IPP tender programmes on ice earlier this year, despite having short-listed 23 potential IPP projects, with a combined capacity of 4 500 MW.

The utility claims that it required further clarity from the Department of Energy, which was still drafting an integrated resource plan (IRP), as to how much electricity it should source from IPPs. It also wanted greater regulatory certainty on the cost-recovery mechanism involved.

Engineering News Online understands that Cabinet could be asked to approve the IRP at its next meeting, with an inter-Ministerial committee having met to deliberate on the latest version last week.