- South Africa is developing new legislation to speed up energy projects to add generating capacity and help end power cuts.
- Ramaphosa is meeting stakeholders to discuss ways to deal with the country’s worst power cuts record.
South Africa is developing new legislation to speed up energy projects to add generating capacity and help end power cuts. A presentation seen by Reuters on Tuesday from the country’s energy crisis committee showed that ageing coal-fired power stations, underinvestment in new capacity and foot-dragging on policies to encourage private providers had left South Africa facing constant power cuts. However, work is underway to accelerate the procurement of additional capacity, according to a presentation from the National Energy Crisis Committee, set up by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The committee is working to “develop emergency legislation which can be tabled in Parliament to allow energy projects to proceed more quickly and enable coordinated and decisive action.”
It added that a “web of bureaucracy” was making it difficult to deal with the power crisis and that “the current regulatory framework wasn’t designed to deal with an energy shortfall”. The document noted that progress had been made on the Energy Action Plan announced by Ramaphosa in July, including raising licensing requirements for private embedded generation projects and importing power.
Ramaphosa is meeting stakeholders to discuss ways to deal with the country’s worst power cuts record. The largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, on Tuesday, announced that it would go to court to halt the recent “unaffordable tariff increases” approved by the energy regulator. In one meeting where leaders of political parties were present, it was revealed that electricity shortages looked set to continue at least into 2024.