Business organisation the National Employers’ Association of South Africa (Neasa), in its comments on the proposed amendments to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA), called for the liberalisation of electricity generation up to 50 MW. It also called for wheeling and for definitions to be updated to clarify renewable plus storage project limits.
South Africa’s renewable-energy procurement programme, which finally resumed again on April 12 following a seven-year disruption, continues to attract strong interest with some 600 people, including representatives from over 300 registered bidders, participating in a virtual bidders conference on Wednesday convened to focus on the qualifying criteria for participation in the fifth bid window. Besides attracting over 580 South African participants, including representatives from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and Eskom, the conference was also attended by delegates from Egypt, India, Germany, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Russia, Ireland and Norway.
Lesotho is facing the loss of revenue from water and power sales to South Africa and may see its share of an undersea communications cable seized after it breached the terms of a contract with Frazer Solar. Under a global enforcement order, following the award of €50-million in damages in an arbitration case in South Africa, Frazer said in a statement Tuesday that it has taken legal action to seize royalties that would be paid to Lesotho’s government by the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, as well as payments for power from Eskom Holdings.
The Western Cape government, through its Finance and Economic Opportunities Minister David Maynier, has submitted comments to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) to amend Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act to increase the licence-exemption cap for embedded generation plants.
Currently, the licence-exemption threshold is 1 MW and there have been calls from various industries to lift the threshold to 50 MW.
A regulatory reform exempting small and medium-sized electricity generation projects from the requirement of a National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) licence is an “obvious and easy way to liberate a huge pipeline of investment that will assist South Africa to have sufficient electricity for its development needs”. However, leading energy commentator Professor Anton Eberhard says the draft amendment to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act, published for comment on April 23, will not meet this objective, as the language remains ambiguous, while the licence-exemption threshold is set too low.
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