Indian power generation company NTPC has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South African State-owned utility Eskom to exchange knowledge and collaborate on research and development (R&D), among other things. The signing of the MoU took place at the Matla-Urja Energy Conference, in Johannesburg, on November 28.
Power utility Eskom has published a notice of the possible disconnection of bulk electricity supply to Tokologo local municipality, in the Free State, which will result in bulk electricity supply to Boshof, Seretse, Dealesville and Hertzogville being interrupted for a set number of hours each day from January 31. The utility says the municipality currently owes it R328.7-million, excluding the current account of a further R3.68-million that became due and payable on November 20, and that the last payment it received from the municipality was R150 000 in October 2021.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has again urged South Africa to implement its economic reforms “ambitiously”, while arguing for priority to be given to reforms in the electricity and logistics sectors that pose binding constraints to higher growth. An IMF staff mission visited South Africa from November 11 to 25 for the 2024 Article IV annual consultation, and a report was published on November 26 that included an IMF growth forecast of 1.1% for this year and 1.5% for 2025.
Power utility Eskom says it has successfully completed its prepaid meter Key Revision Number (KRN) rollover project, but has set a new deadline of December 13 to assist paying customers who are still experiencing challenges and an estimated 1.7-million zero buyers that are yet to complete the upgrade. Eskom points out that it started off with a customer base of 6.91-million prepaid customers, while a data cleaning exercise fully updated the incomplete details of 341 000 customers, taking the customer base to 7.25-million.
State-owned power utility Eskom has welcomed the decision by international ratings agency S&P Global Ratings to upgrade Eskom’s ‘B’ long-term global-scale foreign and local currency ratings to positive from stable. The ratings agency also affirmed Eskom’s ‘B’ issue rating on the group’s senior unsecured debt and the ‘BB-’ foreign currency issue ratings on the government guaranteed debt.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has reiterated its aim of securing Cabinet approval for a new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity by the end of March after releasing a remodelled draft plan on Tuesday. Dubbed IRP2024, the updated plan includes a reference case and scenarios that differ materially from those contained in the draft IRP2023 released in January, leading to some calls for more time for consultations.
Following a strategic review of the National Transmission Company South Africa’s (NTCSA’s) corporate plan, which includes focusing on accelerating the delivery of the Transmission Development Plan (TDP), long-term agreements were signed with 28 local companies to provide the NTCSA with the services for the construction of substations. To date, the NTCSA has signed agreements with over 60 suppliers over the last few months, enabling them to respond to tenders and supply services in the areas of transformers, engineering services, overhead lines and substations.
State-owned utility Eskom has noted that it, at the weekend, succeeded in a technological breakthrough enabling it to pre-create Key Change Tokens (KCT) on its online vending system. This meant that buyers with active meters, but who had not bought electricity in recent months, had been granted an extension to update their meters to be Key Revision Number 2 (KRN2) compliant beyond the November 24 deadline.
Zambia suffered a nationwide power outage on Sunday following a “power system disturbance”, the southern Africa nation’s state utility Zesco said.
The utility said the incident occurred our 18:15 GMT, leading to loss of power supply that affected the whole country.
It said it was working to resolve the unplanned outage, and power supply restoration was under way.
A group of investors led by South African private equity firm Harith General Partners agreed to buy out an infrastructure fund with stakes in assets including Lanseria International Airport and Kelvin Power Station for R6.5-billion. The deal provides an exit opportunity for investors in the first Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund, which includes the continent’s largest pension fund — South Africa’s Government Employees Pension Fund — along with Absa Bank, Old Mutual and others. Harith will team up with Mergence Investment Managers and Zungu Investments
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