Photo by: Duane Daws
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has acknowledged that load shedding is likely to be part of a broader series of interventions to address the country’s prevailing electricity problems. However, it has appealed for every effort to be made to minimise the negative impact on the economy and for the private sector to be allowed to play a more central role in alleviating the country’s current “untenable” power constraints.
“It is recognised that load shedding is an intervention that must be used to protect the system in the short term. However, a broad-ranging framework of actions, with implementation timeframes and costs, should be developed as a matter of extreme urgency,” Busa said in a statement.
Business working groups had been established under Busa’s energy task team to develop supply- and demand-side proposals, while a further working group was investigating how load shedding could take account of the specific challenges of different sectors.
“Any interventions to alleviate the current situation should be evaluated, both in terms of actual cost and economic impact and the timeframe required for implementation.”
The organisation endorsed the five-point electricity plan adopted by Cabinet in December, as well as the establishment of the Eskom war room, with which Busa members and other energy-sector business organisations has set up a bilateral working group.
Busa applauded the openness with which Eskom and government were approaching their engagements with stakeholders and it appealed for ongoing open, transparent and consistent communication.
It was “fundamental”, though, for the private sector’s role in identifying and implementing solutions to be recognised and harnessed through an agreed framework of action.
The private sector “is critical to the implementation of each of the five points in the plan” including:
- The implementation of the Eskom maintenance plan.
- The provision of immediate additional supply through short and medium term contracts with independent power producers (IPPs) and cogeneration projects.
- The construction of private coal-fired generation capacity.
- Investment in the gas sector and gas imports.
- And the roll-out of immediate demand-side measures.
In December, the Department of Energy issued a request for proposals for the supply of 1 600 MW of IPP coal-fired generation capacity by 2021. A deadline of June 8 has been set for bid submissions and IPPs have been requested to notify the department of their intention to bid by May 11.
Government’s IPP Office has also released the request for information to test the market potential for near-term demand response and/or distributed generation solutions and it is understood that a cogeneration tender is also being prepared.
There is also a plan to transfer implementation responsibility for the underperforming solar water heating (SWH) rebate programme from Eskom to the DoE.
However, the SWH fraternity was concerned about the lack of clarity on the future of the rebate scheme, as well as the transitional arrangements.
The industry fears a repeat of the scenario that followed the demise, at the end of 2012, of the government programme to roll out solar geysers to low-income homes, which left the sector in crisis and resulted in job losses and factory closures.