Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa indicated that they would finalise proposals with the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) on the funding model for the expansion of the grid.
Cabinet had referred back proposals by Ramokgopa to finance grid expansion a few months ago, but Ramokgopa on Tuesday said the teams have been working closely together on the model.
Ramokgopa had said previously they will need investors to pump in R390 billion to finance grid expansion because the Eskom balance sheet was not in a position to do so.
There were already investors in the private sector who were willing to be involved in the project.
The government wants to expand the grid by 14,000km in the next 10 years to meet the demand for energy supply.
Ramokgopa was on Tuesday briefing the media on energy security in the country.
The minister also said he hoped the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) will soon approve the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill, which will open the electricity market to competition.
Deputy President Paul Mashatile was leading that initiative on the Electricity Regulation Bill.
However, Ramokgopa said they will go back to the Cabinet on the financing model of the expansion of the grid.
“We are going to go back to Cabinet to give an update. The decision has been made. Where we are at now is finalisation with that approach with the NTCSA and I think from our side we thought it’s appropriate to give the NTCSA an opportunity to look at these models that we are proposing,” said Ramokgopa.
“The teams have been meeting consistently and there is some degree of convergence, and once we have firmed up on an approach we should be able to jointly share with the markets and the country how we are going to address that situation.”
Ramokgopa had said they wanted to focus on provinces in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape where there was lack of grid capacity.
A number of renewable energy projects have been stalled in these coastal provinces because of lack of grid capacity, said the minister in the past.
Ramokgopa also said on Tuesday he was confident the NCOP will approve the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill soon.
This was part of priority legislation that was tabled in Parliament a few months ago.
He said the bill will bring the necessary reforms that they want in the energy sector.
“With the regards to the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill, it has gone through the National Assembly. I did make the point that the expectation that it is going to the NCOP,” said Ramokgopa.
“I made the point the last time, it’s part of priority legislation. The leader of government business in the form of the Deputy President is the one that is spearheading that effort,” he said.
“I still remain confident that we should be able to get it through the NCOP and it will have a life and give effect to the kind of reforms we want to introduce and ensure energy security going forward into the future.”
Ramokgopa also said there has been an improvement in energy supply in the past few days because of measures they have been taking to reduce the frequency and intensity of load shedding.
He said they were hoping to bring 2,500MW of new generation capacity in the next five months, which will further reduce levels of load shedding.
But there were fewer days of load shedding this year compared to the same period last year.
The country has been without load shedding for almost two weeks now.
The improvements in generation capacity were not by accident, but the work put in by Eskom.
They were also close to achieving their target of 60% of the energy availability factor.
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