The City of Johannesburg will issue a request for proposals (RFP) for the procurement of electricity from independent power producers in three months, Executive Mayor Mpho Phalatse announced in her closing address to the two-day Joburg Energy Indaba. Phalatse said the procurement would be conducted on a phased basis and that she expected the first projects to be rolled-out over the coming 18 to 24 months.
EIMS Africa has appointed Tasneem Khan as its new project CEO for a portfolio of six solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in South Africa. As the former project CFO of the portfolio, she has been managing these projects in a caretaking capacity for the past few months.
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has highlighted three key resource advantages that he argues could transform the coal province of Mpumalanga into a global “flagship” of the just energy transition. In an address to the Mpumalanga Energy Summit, De Ruyter argued that the province’s skilled human resources, its access to grid infrastructure and its solar and wind resources, which were superior to those in most other jurisdictions, even if not the best in the country, placed it in a strong position to transition to renewables.
South Korean company Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced on Monday that the first reactor at its latest nuclear power plant (NPP) had achieved criticality for the first time. Unit 1 at the Shin Hanul NPP reached this operational milestone on Sunday. “In the future, Shin Hanul Unit 1 plans to produce electricity for the first time early next month after undergoing a performance test of the power plant system with safety as the top priority,” affirmed KHNP in its statement. The reactor has a generation capacity of 1 400 MWe.
Eskom has approached the Constitutional Court to argue that it should not be compelled to provide two of South Africa’s most indebted municipalities with more electricity than provided for in supply agreements.  The power utility is seeking leave to appeal a high court ruling from August 2020 that directed it to increase the amount of electricity it provides to the struggling Ngwathe Municipality in the Free State and the Lekwa Municipality in Mpumalanga.