South Africa’s 2023 Budget includes tax incentives worth R9-billion to support businesses and households invest in renewable energy, including rooftop solar, in a bid to offset the impact of intensifying power cuts. In addition, the National Treasury announced that it would amend the bounce-back loan scheme, initially set up to support the recovery of businesses from the Covid-19 pandemic, to help address energy-related constraints.
Niche media company Epic Outdoor this month launched South Africa’s largest-ever, solar-powered digital billboard site on the N1 highway. Tasneem Bulbulia tells us more.
The City of Cape Town is pulling out all the stops to protect residents in the event Eskom implements Stage 8 loadshedding. Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said during Stage 8 loadshedding, half the metro would be left without power at any given time – at least 12 hours a day.
South Africa’s struggling State-owned utility Eskom Holdings appears to have reached an unprecedented level of power cuts, indicated late Tuesday by the company spokesman. The company cut 7 045 MW from the grid, a practice locally referred to as loadshedding, in order to keep the grid from a total collapse, Sikonathi Mantshantsha said in a post on Twitter. While that would be the deepest level of outage on record, so-called Stage 7 power cuts were not formally announced on Eskom’s schedule. The most recent announcement said the utility is implementing Stage 6, where it removes 6 000 MW.
Ahead of the national budget, to be tabled on February 22, the Small Business Institute (SBI) has called on Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to support small businesses and their employees, households and families who are facing high costs of living and experiencing negative impacts as a result of loadshedding.
SBI CEO John Dludlu says the institute appeals to Godongwana to explain how government will support South Africans from the effects of an 18% electricity tariff increase, which was granted by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to Eskom.
Sasol CEO Fleetwood Grobler announced on Tuesday that the JSE-listed group had signed a total of five power purchase agreements (PPAs) in South Africa to date, increasing the company’s procurement of renewable energy for its South African operations to 550 MW. He added that further agreements would be concluded this year in line with its goal of procuring 1 200 MW of renewable electricity by 2030.
Coal quality and mining productivity problems continue to negatively affect production at Sasol’s Secunda Operations, in Mpumalanga, where only between 6.6-million tons and 6.9-million tons will be produced this financial year. Such output is well below both the group’s initial production guidance for the year of between 7-million and 7.2-million tons, as well as historical output levels of better than 7.5-million tons.
Reeling from South Africa’s worst-ever electricity crisis, local authorities across the country are turning to private suppliers to help businesses and households keep the lights on. President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a state of disaster over the energy crunch, which is seen wiping as much as two percentage points off economic growth this year.
Resolving the energy crisis, growing the tourism sector and ensuring water security in KwaZulu-Natal were among the priorities discussed during the provincial planning Lekgotla last week. The planning Lekgotla takes place ahead of the State of the Province Address (SoPA), which will be held on February 24. During the Lekgotla, Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said the impact of sustained loadshedding had derailed potential investments and investors, further causing untold damage to the economy of the …
Eskom has confirmed that it is in the process of reviewing the current framework that governs loadshedding amid renewed concern that the State-owned utility may need to implement rotational cuts beyond the Stage 6 level that has already been declared several times this year, and possibly even beyond the eight stages catered for under the current framework. CEO André de Ruyter offered an assurance on Monday that the utility was not expecting to have to move beyond Stage 6 loadshedding this week, despite a severely constrained system, indicating that the intensity of loadshedding should be reduced to Stage 4 by Thursday morning.
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