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Eskom to implement Stage 2 load-shedding from 22:00

By: Creamer Media Reporter 9th February 2021 Power utility Eskom says it will implement load-shedding from 22:00 on February 9 to 05:00 on February 10 in order to preserve and replenish the emergency generation reserves and maximise the capacity available during the daytime hours. "The power generation system is still severely constrained... →

Nersa subcommittee recommends approval of 40 MW Gold Fields solar licence

By: Terence Creamer 8th February 2021 The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) electricity subcommittee has recommended that the Energy Regulator approves Gold Fields’ high-profile licence application for a 40 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project to be developed at its South Deep mine, in Gauteng. Nersa has confirmed... →

South Deep

Nersa committee holds back approval on Eskom application to buy short-term power

By: Terence Creamer 5th February 2021 The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) electricity subcommittee decided, on February 5, not to approve Eskom’s application for the emergency procurement of electricity from eight private generators under its Short-Term Power Purchase Programme (STPPP). In March 2020, the... →

Eskom supports lifting licensing exemption threshold for electricity generation to 50MW

5th February 2021 Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has expressed support for a lifting of the licensing threshold on distributed generators from 1 MW to 50 MW. Engineering News editor Terence Creamer unpacks the significance of this statement. →

Eskom supports lifting licensing exemption threshold for electricity generation to 50MW

PIC clarifies board changes

By: Simone Liedtke 4th February 2021 Futhi Mtoba and Karabo Morule have been appointed to the Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC’s) interim board, following the departure of prior interim board members. The current board was appointed in July 2019 on an interim basis for a period of 12 months, which ended in July 2020. This term... →

EUIG wants wheeling reform to accompany rise in licence-exemption cap to 50 MW

By: Terence Creamer 4th February 2021 The Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) has added its voice to growing calls to increase South Africa’s licence exemption threshold from 1 MW to 50 MW, but says the change should be accompanied by an updating of the current framework for wheeling power across the network. In a... →

Former SA Express execs could face music at inquiry as airline sale draws to an end

By: News24Wire 4th February 2021 Former executives and directors of the soon-to-be-sold state-owned regional airline SA Express (SAX) are expected to appear before an inquiry into what led to its liquidation. The inquiry started on 25 September last year. SA Express was placed under provisional liquidation in April 2020 after a... →

De Ruyter backs call for lifting of licensing cap on distributed generators to 50 MW

By: Terence Creamer 2nd February 2021 Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter says the State-owned utility is fully supportive of moves by large customers to develop distributed generation plants to power their operations, as well as growing calls to lift the licensing threshold from 1 MW to 50 MW so as to accelerate these investments. South... →

Photo by Creamer Media's Donna Slater
Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter

Eskom, Sasol rebuffed, Creecy says as she fights pollution suit

By: Bloomberg 2nd February 2021 Environmental Affairs Minister Barbara Creec said she rejected pleas for leniency from senior executives at the country’s two biggest air polluters as she responded to a lawsuit that says her office has breached constitutional rights to clean air. In a 260-page answering affidavit to a lawsuit... →

Gordhan wants to 'change playing field' in SAA's rescue process, court hears

By: News24Wire 1st February 2021 Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan is trying "change the playing field" by attempting to get the Labour Court to sanction deviating from SAA's approved business rescue plan and to get an unfair advantage in terms of the collective bargaining process. This was claimed by attorney Minnaar... →

Lack of liquidity, exacerbated by Covid-19, caused Denel’s failure to properly pay workers

By: Rebecca Campbell 1st February 2021 In his statement within the State-owned defence industrial group Denel’s 2019/2020 annual report, interim CEO Talib Sadik addressed the failure of the company to fully pay the salaries of its employees last year, even though this fell within the 2020/2021 financial year. He blamed the group’s... →

Denel finally publishes its annual report for 2019/20; reports R1.96bn loss

By: Rebecca Campbell 1st February 2021 South African State-owned defence industrial group Denel released its 2019/20 annual report on Monday. The period covered by the report does not include the very difficult months for the group that followed the commencement of the 2020/21 financial year at the start of last April. From last May,... →

South African radioisotope company gets unqualified audits from Auditor General

By: Rebecca Campbell 29th January 2021 South African State-owned nuclear technology company, NTP Radioisotopes (NTP), has received an unqualified audit for a second year in a row. NTP is part of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (better known as Necsa) group, but its finances are managed independently of the group and... →

Eskom seeks to recover R23bn through courts amid tariff hike

29th January 2021 The precise size of the upcoming tariff hike is not yet known as Eskom seeks to recover R23-billion more through the courts. Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer unpacks this complicated issue. →

Eskom seeks to recover R23bn through courts, amid tariff hike

Power hike could surge beyond the 10% hinted to by Nersa as Eskom hunts R23bn more in courts

By: Terence Creamer 28th January 2021 South Africans should brace for power hikes of about 10% this year after the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) finalised a court-ordered re-adjudication of Eskom’s previous applications. However, the increase could be materially higher should Eskom prevail in its legal endeavour... →

Nhlanhla Gumede

SAA administrators get R1.3bn from government

By: Reuters 27th January 2021 Administrators at national airline South African Airways (SAA) received R1.3-billion from the Department of Public Enterprises last week, a spokesperson for the administrators said on Wednesday. The money would be used to pay accepted and signed voluntary severance packages, employees who... →

Eskom approaches court to have R23bn equity injection added back this year

By: Terence Creamer 26th January 2021 State-owned electricity utility Eskom will make the case later this month for the immediate execution of a High Court order stipulating that an amount of R23-billion stripped unlawfully from its allowable revenue in 2019 by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa be added back during its... →

Regulatory, policy constraints continue to bedevil SA's distributed generation market

22nd January 2021 Creamer Media's Chanel de Bruyn speaks to Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer about the fact that South Africa is still experiencing load-shedding, but remains slow to open up the market to distributed energy projects, as well as about what could be done to realise this pent-up potential. →

Regulatory, policy constraints continue to bedevil SA's distributed generation market

As South Africa veers from NDP jobs and poverty goals ‘course corrections’ proposed

By: Terence Creamer 21st January 2021 With the National Development Plan’s (NDP’s) goals of achieving full employment and eliminating poverty by 2030 already out of reach ahead of the onset of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, which has since obliterated the plan’s objectives entirely, the outgoing National Planning Commission (NPC) has... →

Unions want Labour Court to order SAA to sort out backpay within 7 days

By: News24Wire 19th January 2021 The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the SA Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) intend to make an urgent application to the Labour Court in Johannesburg on 28 January to have a deal regarding backpay of members of South African Airways (SAA) declared unlawful or unfair. The... →

Land Bank posts a R172m interim loss for 2020

By: News24Wire 19th January 2021 The Land Bank has posted a R172-million loss from its continuing operations for the six months ended on 30 September as its interest income continued to decline while provision for bad debts grew. The state-owned lender, which finances approximately 27% of agricultural debt in SA and is the only... →

Eskom to resume power cuts in South Africa on Monday

By: Reuters 18th January 2021 South Africa's state power utility Eskom said on Sunday that a nationwide phased power cut due to end on Sunday would resume from Monday morning because some generating units were not yet operational. "As the return to service of some generation units has been delayed ... Stage 2 loadshedding... →

Land Bank reworking debt plan after State guarantee declined

By: Reuters 15th January 2021 South African State-owned Land Bank said on Thursday it was working on a new debt restructuring plan after the National Treasury declined to provide a partial government guarantee. The country's largest agriculture-focused lender defaulted on its debt in April and has been in talks with creditors... →

Eskom says Stage 2 load-shedding to continue until Sunday

By: Marleny Arnoldi 14th January 2021 State-owned power utility Eskom has advised that Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented from midday on January 14 through to the end of January 17. Eskom says the load-shedding is necessary owing two tripped generation units at the Kusile power station, as a result of failure of the main coal... →

Desperate SAA pilots who left locked out union to get money still haven't been paid

By: News24Wire 11th January 2021 The SAA Pilots' Association wants to know why – unlike other employees at the state-owned airline – their thirteenth cheques for 2019 have not yet been paid from the R1.5-billion in funding the Department of Public Enterprises made available to the rescue practitioners in December. Saapa is... →

First application made for power-tariff relief under new DMRE frameworks

By: Terence Creamer 11th January 2021 The first application for tariff relief provided for under the Negotiated Pricing Agreement (NPA) frameworks published late last year by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has been submitted to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for authorisation. Nersa tells... →

Eskom suspends rolling blackouts as demand ebbs

By: African News Agency 8th January 2021 South African electricity company Eskom said on Friday it was suspending rolling power cuts implemented this week as demand had dropped ahead of the weekend. Eskom, which supplies about 95 percent of the country’s electricity mainly through coal, however urged consumers to continue using the... →

Has SAA's rescue plan become unimplementable?

By: News24Wire 6th January 2021 The rescue practitioners of South African Airways could still end up having to say that the state-owned airline's rescue plan is not financially viable anymore and unimplementable. Then they would be forced to liquidate the airline because the business rescue process could not serve its purpose... →

SAA pilot lockout 'indefinite', while backpay dispute raises legal issues, says labour lawyer

By: News24Wire 5th January 2021 The rescue practitioners of South African Airways can continue with the lockout of pilots as long as it suits them or until the SAA Pilots’ Association agrees to their proposals, says Hugo Pienaar, a labour law expert at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. Members of SAAPA have been locked out by the rescue... →

Unplanned shut of Koeberg Unit 1 affects installation of new steam generators, raises load-shedding spectre

By: Terence Creamer 4th January 2021 Electricity utility Eskom reported on Monday that Koeberg Unit 1 would be taken offline for repairs one month ahead of scheduled maintenance after an increasing leak rate was detected from one of the unit’s three steam generators. Eskom said in a statement that the leak rate was “well within the... →

SAA pilots union: Key issue is not cuts to salaries, perks - it's who will be rehired and why

By: News24Wire 18th December 2020 The South African Airways Pilots Association (SAAPA) has hit back at claims by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) that a regulating agreement dating back to 1988 - which covers the cost structure for the airline's pilots - is too expensive to allow the restructured flag carrier to get off... →

DPE says pilot deal is too expensive and makes new SAA unattractive for investors

By: News24Wire 17th December 2020 In order for a restructured South African Airways (SAA) to get off the ground, it is critical to reduce what it regards as the too high current cost structure relating to pilots in terms of a regulating agreement dating from 1988, the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) said in a statement on... →

Eskom’s bailout emerging as equity swap by biggest bondholder

By: Bloomberg 17th December 2020 South Africa’s biggest pot of available cash – R1.91-trillion of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) – is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken national power monopoly. The money manager has approached its parent agency, the... →

Zuma files challenge against Zondo

By: Reuters 16th December 2020 Former President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday filed a legal challenge against the judge who refused to recuse himself from an inquiry into State corruption, his lawyer confirmed. "The review challenge was filed today," Eric Mabuza, Zuma's attorney, said in an emailed reply to Reuters. The country's... →

Jacob Zuma chats with a member of his legal team ahead of the commission of inquiry probing State capture, in Johannesburg, in November.

Eskom outlines streamlined restructuring model to deliver independent grid company by end-2021

By: Terence Creamer 14th December 2020 Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter outlined a streamlined approach on Monday to the vertical separation of the State-owned utility into three businesses of generation, distribution and transmission, which he said could accelerate the process of establishing an Eskom-owned independent transmission system... →

Photo by Creamer Media's Donna Slater
Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter

Hunt on for ‘tens of billions’ more, as ABB agrees to repay R1.56bn to settle corrupt Kusile contract

By: Terence Creamer 11th December 2020 Eskom and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) announced on Friday that an agreement had been reached with ABB South Africa in terms of which the multinational technology group would repay R1.56-billion to the State-owned utility to settle an overpayment dispute relating to a corrupt Kusile... →

Numsa blasts DPE, SAA, over 'misleading' workers, warns against 'unlawful' actions

By: Rebecca Campbell 11th December 2020 The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has attacked the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) concerning its behaviour regarding maintenance and repair organisation South African Airways Technical (SAAT), a subsidiary of the State-owned national airline South African Airways... →

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