As South Africans contend with power cuts on Monday owing to insufficient energy generation capacity by Eskom, the Democratic Alliance (DA) wants government to open up the market to allow the participation of small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) in the renewable energy sector.

The party pointed out that South Africa was experiencing unprecedented levels of power cuts this year, with no sign of an immediate end to the supply challenges faced by Eskom, which was also seeking a 32% tariff increase from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

“Meanwhile, the damage to the economy, particularly small enterprises, has been immediate and enormous. Broad economic cost due to daily disruptions includes significant losses in production, investments, large scale de-industrialisation, greater unemployment and declining livelihoods. The country's unstable power supply further undermines the government's so-called plan of encouraging digital innovations among small and micro-entrepreneurs,” the DA said.

The party believed that SMMEs could play a significant role in solving South Africa’s power crisis by being allowed to take part in small-scale energy generation (SSEG) activities.

The DA added that the ongoing electricity crisis posed the single biggest existential threat to any business in the SMME sector.

“It is, therefore, unconscionable that the Minister of Small Business Development Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams is not actively working to promote increased SMME participation in the renewable energy sector,” it said.

The party explained that SSEG would provide the opportunity for traditional electricity consumers to be transformed into “prosumers”, by allowing small businesses to become active contributors to the supply of electricity while generating employment and economic output throughout the energy supply chain.

The DA blamed the African National Congress (ANC) for the power supply crisis, saying it was a direct consequence of the ANC’s “hostile State interventionist and race-based policy approach” to the energy solution, which it believed incentivised corruption on an industrial scale.