Paying for electricity used in households, businesses, industries or municipalities would help to improve South Africa’s energy security, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged compatriots here on Monday.
Speaking in his weekly message to the nation, Ramaphosa said his government was working hard to find alternative power supply sources to ease the current strain the beleaguered state-owned Eskom electricity supplier was going through to provide the commodity.
“While Eskom works to improve its operational performance and new generation capacity is being built, there is much that we can each do to improve the situation,” the president said.
He added: “Beyond the free basic electricity that government provides, we need to make sure that all of us pay for the electricity we use, whether as individuals, households, businesses, industries or municipalities.”
According to the president, the country’s “illegal connections of power, meter tampering and the illegal sale of prepaid electricity vouchers, make it much harder for Eskom and municipal power utilities to improve their infrastructure and even to continue to provide electricity” to consumers.
Due to the power shortages, the president said his government was encouraging and accepting the private energy sector to assist Eskom boost output to clients who have suffered regular load-shedding (power rationing) in the past three years due to inadequate energy supplies.
He blamed Eskom’s aged power stations for the inefficient energy output, saying that most of the power generation were commissioned 40 years ago and the low output had taken a toll on its ability to supply adequate energy to South Africans.
“Resolving our energy challenges isn’t just urgent — it is fundamental to South Africa’s economic recovery. That is why we are making every effort to bring new power generation capacity online in the shortest possible time,” Ramaphosa said.
In this regard, he disclosed that his government had granted nine private sector energy operators licences to supply 2,000MW to the country. This project would be constructed over an 18-month period and was expected to be up and running by August 2022, he said.
In addition, the government has opened bidding for proposals for more independent power producers to supply a further 2,600 megawatts of renewable energy as part of Pretoria’s efforts to boost the country’s much needed electricity to power its economic recovery.
NM/jn/APA