Energy transition implications highlighted at SA Auto Week

Amid local energy constraints and a global focus on increasing renewable energy capacity, the importance of ensuring that proper planning is implemented as South Africa transitions to cleaner energy was highlighted during a roundtable discussion at this year’s South African (SA) Auto Week, hosted by naamsa | The Automotive Business Council, in Johannesburg, from October 11 to 13. During the discussion, a need to diversify the energy mix and ensure a stable baseload energy supply was discussed, with South African Nuclear Energy Corporation CEO Loyiso Tyabashe arguing that nuclear energy can contribute towards a diversified energy mix.
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Municipal credit risk poses big challenge as Eskom gears up to implement virtual wheeling

The credit risk associated with municipalities in arrears to Eskom poses a challenge to the roll-out of the utility’s proposed virtual wheeling platform and is also likely to limit the ability of corporates with distributed facilities to rely exclusively on virtual wheeling as currently conceived to meet their net-zero commitments. Eskom aims to launch the platform – which allows for one or more generators to transact with multiple customers that have disbursed operational footprints, including ones located in municipal distribution areas – in the second half of 2024.
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Former Eskom employees targeted in Sars coal syndicate raids

The South African Revenue Service led a large-scale government search and seizure operation against several alleged members of coal smuggling syndicates across the country on Thursday, including former Eskom employees. “The alleged coal-smugglers and their related entities are active and have a presence in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Limpopo,” the tax authority said in a statement. “The suspects targeted today include former Eskom employees who facilitated procurement fraud, as well as other individuals involved in the diversion of high-grade coal.” Sars said it established that the suspects had contravened several tax laws, including non-registration for income tax, failure to submit tax returns, under-declaration of income, claiming undue VAT refunds, and making false submissions. Sars put the loss of revenue to the fiscus by the syndicates at over R500-million. Coal smuggling syndicates have been a consistent problem for Eskom. Often, trucks transporting coal to power stations are diverted to specific coal yards, and high-quality coal is swapped out for low-grade product, scrap or rocks. When the lower-grade products are used at the station, they cause infrastructure damage, rendering them unable to generate electricity, leading to more loadshedding. Sars Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said the raids were a massive breakthrough in ongoing investigations into the syndicates.
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South Africa targets coal-smuggling syndicate across five provinces

The South African Revenue Service and other government agencies said they disrupted a coal smuggling syndicate operating across five of the country’s nine provinces. The search-and-seizure operation targeted former employees of state power utility Eskom Holdings “who facilitated procurement fraud,” the agencies said in a statement on Thursday.
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