Growthpoint Properties, South Africa’s largest real estate investment trust, said its running out of diesel to operate generators at some of its buildings as the country grapples with the worst electricity shortage since 2019. In a letter to customers at one of its sites in Johannesburg the company said it suppliers are struggling to keep up as Eskom Holdings, the national power utility, cuts as much as 6 000 megawatts from the national grid after a pay strike disrupted operations.
Power utility Eskom on Thursday said it would again implement Stage 6 load-shedding, from 14:00 until midnight, as the unlawful strike by employees continues. Stage 4 load-shedding will be implemented from 00:00 to 05:00 on Friday. From 05:00 until 00:00 on Friday, load-shedding will be implemented at Stage 6.
After a week of protests at Eskom operations that no one has claimed responsibility for plunged the country into Stage 6 load-shedding, two unions are now dealing with members who are pushing for an outright rejection of a new wage offer. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Solidarity are expected to return to wage talks at the Central Bargaining Forum (CBF) on Friday. Several reports have said Eskom has upped it’s offer to 7%, though there has been no official confirmation on that.
JSE-listed industrial group Reunert has set its sights on capturing a critical market in South Africa and beyond: renewable energy. The group, during its investor day showcase on June 28, highlighted its renewable energy strategy execution, which leverages its renewable energy cluster that spans solar energy embedded generation engineering, procurement and construction; solar energy asset ownership through a build-own-operate (BOO) model; high performance, ultrareliable, locally manufactured storage solutions; and smart energy control and management solutions.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has come out in support of nuclear plant lifetime extension programmes, as Eskom pushes ahead with its plans to extend the life of the Koeberg nuclear power station, in the Western Cape. A new IEA report, titled ‘Nuclear Power and Secure Energy Transitions’, argues that life extensions are a “cost-effective source of low-emission electricity, estimated at less than $50/MWh for a 10- to 20-year extension”.
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