Mantashe open to meeting with opposition to seek short-term solutions to power crisis

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has described as “constructive” a proposal by the opposition Democratic Alliance for a meeting to discuss short-term solutions to the country’s ongoing load-shedding crisis. In his Budget Vote address, Mantashe outlined the initiatives his department was taking to ensure that new capacity was added and to close what Eskom estimates to be a 4 000 MW to 6 000 MW immediate shortfall.
/by

Eskom confirms sabotage incidents at Tutuka

Power utility Eskom on May 19 confirmed an incident in which a cable was severed at the Tutuka power station this week while the power station was finalising preparations to return Unit 5 to service. “The damage to the cable had the effect of delaying the unit’s return to service by three days, as it took some time to locate the fault.
/by

Fanaroff dismisses infrastructure versus localisation dichotomy as ‘factually wrong’

The “either-or” narrative pitting accelerated infrastructure delivery against localisation has been challenged by Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who played a central role in the development of the Steel Master Plan, which identifies localisation as one of several instruments to be used to revive the embattled sector. Speaking at a conference on the master plan hosted by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa, Fanaroff questioned the view emerging in some parts of government, business and academia that “localisation will add unnecessary costs, delays and quality issues” to the delivery of urgently needed infrastructure.
/by

Pivot to citizen-owned renewables could save City Power, energy specialist says ahead of indaba

Johannesburg could turn around the lossmaking performance of City Power, end load-shedding and improve the green credentials of its manufacturing industry by purchasing 80% of its wholesale electricity from large-scale, citizen-owned solar and wind plants at a cost below that purchased from Eskom currently. This is the view of Clyde Mallinson, an energy specialist who has conducted extensive modelling on a future domestic electricity supply industry based exclusively on solar, wind and storage.
/by