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Stage 2 load-shedding to continue until Saturday morning

Power utility Eskom has announced that, owing to a shortage of generation capacity, Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented from 09:00 on October 26 to 05:00 on October 30. “While Eskom teams have successfully returned a unit each at the Kusile, Matimba and Arnot power stations during the early hours of this morning, further delays in returning other units to service have exacerbated the capacity constraints, hampering the ability to replenish the emergency generation reserves. 

Diesel and load-shedding feature in summer outlook as Eskom’s maintenance recovery takes longer …

State-owned electricity utility Eskom says its reliability maintenance recovery (RMR) interventions have not yet succeeded in stabilising the performance of its unpredictable coal fleet and that more than year of ongoing maintenance is needed to address the poor performance of its generation assets. When Eskom announced the RMR in early 2020, it indicated that it expected that the intervention would help ease, albeit not eliminated, the risk of load-shedding by about October this year.

Availability of sustainability funding driving changes in legal agreements

Demand for sustainability-linked loans is surging and banks are competing to offer this new form of finance in South Africa, which is driving legal firms like Webber Wentzel to innovate in the loan terms and agreements that they are drafting for clients, say Webber Wentzel partners Khurshid Fazel and Karen Couzyn. A sustainability-linked loan or a sustainability-linked debt security, collectively referred to as SLL, is different from a green bond.

Just Energy Transition to result in 300 000 new energy jobs over ten years – De Ruyter

Ongoing analysis and work done by various groups into the so-called Just Energy Transition (JET) points to the potential creation of 300 000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in South Africa’s electricity sector over the next decade, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said on October 22.

He added that this figure was over and above accounting for job losses in the coal sector as a result of the looming shuttering of some coal-fired power generation units.

South Africa to set up finance workstream to assess climate-finance offers

The South African government is set to establish a high-level technical workstream, which will work under the direction of a Cabinet subcommittee, to evaluate possible concessional finance offers that could be made in support of the country’s just energy transition strategy. The workstream is yet to be formally assembled, but Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy says it will include finance specialists from the National Treasury, the Department of Public Enterprises, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Eskom and possibly others.