South Africa’s labour minister said he’ll oppose any move to privatize the beleaguered power utility Eskom Holdings, as it struggles to generate power, avoid outages and repay $23-billion of debt. Privatizing the company would be detrimental to the poor, Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi said in an interview. While President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has previously denied any plans to sell the company, there have been calls to divest from the asset. S&P Global Ratings said privatization may be the best option to resolve the power crisis in Africa’s most-industrialised nation.
Amid ongoing delays in returning Koeberg Unit 2 to service, as well as delays to the steam generator replacement (SGR) programme across both Koeberg’s reactors, Eskom has announced the resignation of its chief nuclear officer, Riedewaan Barkadien. COO Jan Oberholzer said on Monday that Barkadien, who has worked at Eskom for 27 years, would depart on July 31 to join a Canadian nuclear utility in an executive position.
South Africans can expect Stage 4 load-shedding until midnight for the next few days, with Stage 2 between midnight and 05:00. This may be downgraded to Stage 3 during the day on Friday, with Stage 2 expected over the weekend, if offline power stations are returned as expected.
Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso has emphasised the important role the private sector has to play in the just energy transition in terms of investment in infrastructure for greener production. “The opportunities are . . . abundant, stemming from the wider renewable energy supply chain, as well as electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen. The world’s eyes are on us, with chequebooks on the table.
Industry body the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has reiterated that South Africa needs a comprehensive plan, informed by energy experts and government stakeholders, to achieve energy security. This was in response to a call by the National Planning Commission (NPC) to increase new power generation capacity.
Emerging integrated energy producer Renergen has achieved the natural gas to plant milestone at its Virginia project, in South Africa’s Free State province. Gas to plant was achieved on July 8 and signified by the opening of the main inlet line from the gas gathering system to the process plant and then to the natural gas filtration and pre-
President Cyril Ramaphosa says that he will, in the coming days, announce a comprehensive set of actions to achieve much faster progress in tackling load-shedding, which has worsened significantly over the past three years and has intensified in recent weeks to the point of being implemented at Stage 6. In his weekly newsletter, the President acknowledged that it was “no time for business as usual”, adding that “we need to act boldly to make load-shedding a thing of the past”.
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