Call for government to expidite processes enabling municipalities to buy power from IPPs

Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato has called on government to expedite processes that will enable municipalities to purchase electricity from Independent Power Producers. He says this will help reduce municipalities’ reliance on electricity generated by Eskom.

Plato says the latest round of Eskom loadshedding is causing a great deal of harm to an already ailing economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

His spokesperson, Greg Wagner, says the City is also working on plans to produce its own electricity.

“In October 2020, amendments to the electricity regulations were finally gazetted which could pave the way for municipalities to source power independently from Independent Power Producers (IPPs). The City’s plans include the building and procuring of our own renewable generation capacity. However, we need urgent clarity from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy on the processes as soon as possible so that we can move forward with the execution of our plans.”

The economy negatively affected by loadshedding:

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Eskom criticised for loadshedding

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has called the power utility reckless for switching off power in poor areas. Lesufi says the power outages also affect schooling in these areas.

Gauteng Eskom spokesperson Reneiloe Semenya has defended the load reduction system, saying Eskom does not have the infrastructure that would allow it to exempt schools from power challenges.

“Based on the purpose to protect the network equipment in order to avoid extended power outages and the persisting high loads on the network, load reduction remains a necessary intervention to stick to. Should there be a significant change in the root causes of network overloading the area/network concerned will be excluded from load reduction and real-time monitoring will continue to ensure that we continue to safeguard the asset from a repeat failure.”