Environmental Affairs Minister Nomvula Mokonyane will appoint a panel of experts to provide strategic and technical guidance on the effective management of sulphur dioxide from old and existing power generation plants.

The decision to appoint a panel comes as a result of the challenges faced by chemicals and energy sector companies such as Eskom and Sasol.

Energy companies had been unable to adequately and effectively manage these emissions, thus failing to comply with the minimum emission standards (MES), the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) said in a statement last week.

The panel will conduct a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the implementation of the postponement provision and the associated emission limits.

It will also advise the Minister and affected companies on identifying and implementing mechanisms, technologies and technical and regulatory tools that will assist in addressing emissions compliance challenges.

Additionally, the panel will advise the Minister on matters related to air quality management.

The panel

will also be expected to evaluate, assist and identify environment-friendly and cost-effective technologies, strategies, action plans and in to complying with the MES.

Environmental Rights Group Response

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) commented in a letter sent to the DEA director general earlier this year that the country’s two biggest polluters, Eskom and Sasol, had received multiple postponements of its compliance with the MES, and establishing a panel such as this further delayed the process of the implementation of actions to ensure compliance with the MES.

The department earlier this year indicated its intent to establish an expert technical panel to consider sulphur dioxide abatement solutions, but the CER said it could not understand why an additional expert panel assessment was required, since the necessary action had already been identified.

The CER called on Sasol and Eskom to either retrofit their plants with sulphur dioxide abatement technology or start an expedited plan to decommission their plants that do not meet the MES.

“An expert panel would only serve to delay the inevitable costs that Sasol and Eskom must incur to comply with the law,” the organisation stated.

The CER added that establishing a panel of experts would duplicate the extensive work done in formulating the MES.

It pointed out that the South African MES for existing plants was 17.5 times weaker than those in China, Germany and the European Union (EU); nearly six times weaker than India’s; and almost five times weaker than Indonesia’s.

The MES for new plants are still 14 times weaker than China’s, five times weaker than India’s, and three times weaker than Germany’s and the EU’s.

The standards were set in March 2010 and revised in November 2013.