The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) said it expressed interest in funding bidders in a South African tender for emergency power provision, including a Turkish supplier of gas-fired power plants on ships, putting it on course for a clash with climate activists. Karpowership, the Istanbul-based company, won the bulk of the bids in March and has until the end of July to secure funding and necessary approvals and agreements to make binding a pact to supply 1,220 megawatts of power for 20 years.
State-owned electricity producer Eskom confirms that it has been approached by customers in various industrial sectors with regard to possible applications for discounted Negotiated Pricing Agreements (NPAs), but says its weak financial position prevents widespread implementation. The first NPA submitted under a recently approved government framework for such deals is currently serving before the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), which has called for stakeholder comment on a proposed ten-year NPA for South32’s Hillside Aluminium smelter, in KwaZulu-Natal.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has disputed claims by Eskom in a statement that the average salary of an Eskom employee stood at R737 000 per annum, contending that employees negotiating their salaries at a bargaining unit could not earn more than R650 460. The union said that the statement, in which the R737 000 figure was mentioned, was a show of bad faith from Eskom. A statement from NUM’s negotiators lamented what they called an “apartheid wage gap” at the power utility.