- This partnership will aid Eskom to achieve its goal of 100 per cent electricity demand from renewable sources.
- Vodacom aims to source all its electricity from independent suppliers.
Vodacom has signed a Virtual Wheeling agreement with utility provider Eskom for independent power supply. This is part of its efforts to improve South Africa’s energy crisis. Vodacom stated that the deal will add capacity to the nation’s power grid. The firm noted that this would enable the operator to move closer to its goal of sourcing 100 per cent of its electricity demand from renewable energy sources by 2025.
In a statement, Vodacom disclosed that this agreement will help the company execute the next phase of securing Independent Power Producers (IPPs) under the same terms and conditions that underpin its agreement with Eskom. The announcement comes about a year after Vodacom outlined its plans to start a pilot with Eskom to source all its electricity from independent suppliers.
The Group CEO of Vodacom, Shameel Joosub, noted, “Vodacom’s partnership with Eskom is transformational in that our virtual wheeling solution will enable South Africa’s private sector to participate in resolving the energy crisis, which continues to impact the country’s economy. It also provides a blueprint for other South African corporates to adopt as we pool our collective resources with the common objective of ending load shedding. The virtual wheeling solution has the potential to be fast-tracked, depending on the available licensed capacity of IPPs.”
South Africa’s energy crisis has been an issue and has worsened this year. Last year, South Africa experienced the worst power cuts, with 205 days of rolling blackouts. This forced Eskom to cut 6,000 megawatts from the national grid after generation units failed at the Kusile and Kriel power stations. Eskom claimed that the power cuts reduced the country’s GDP by approximately five per cent.
According to Vodacom, the power cuts led to spending more than R4 billion ($212 million) on backup power solutions and R300m ($15.9m) in the past financial year alone on operational costs, such as diesel for generators, as the energy crisis has worsened.