South African mines to spend up to R40-billion to ditch Eskom

Mining companies in South Africa are considering spending as much as R40-billion to construct 2GW of power generation capacity, said Roger Baxter, CEO of Minerals Council South Africa.

Mining companies have been pushing to develop their own power plants because of persistent power cuts imposed by Eskom.

Those plans have been given impetus by this year’s decision by the government to allow the construction of plants of up to 100MW in capacity without generation licences.

Baxter was speaking at a webinar convened by the Presidential Climate Change Coordinating Commission on Thursday.  — (c) 2021 Bloomberg LP