Futuregrowth Asset Management, a South African money manager overseeing more than R190-billion of fixed-income assets, says the government’s draft legislation meant to address inefficiencies at state entities is “ineffective, overdue, vague, and contradictory”. The National State Enterprises Bill aims to establish the State Asset Management, a holding company to consolidate the state’s shareholdings. But the draft law does little to address critical failures at the country’s government-owned companies, according to Olga Constantanos, head of credit at Cape Town-based Futuregrowth.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed the efforts by law enforcement agencies and the South African Revenue Service (Sars) to bust coal smuggling syndicates operating in the country. Planned search and seizure operations targeting coal smuggling syndicates have gained traction across five provinces with the documents of individuals alleged to have committed procurement fraud, tax crimes and coal diversion being confiscated.
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says attention should shift to adding new and cleaner generation to the loadshedding-prone electricity system, acknowledging that it would be the “height of folly” to rely on significantly extending the life of the breakdown-prone coal stations. While much of his latest briefing on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan was dedicated to improvements in the operating performance of some of Eskom’s coal units, Ramokgopa said there could be no “overreliance” on the units in future. This, given their advanced age and the fact that many trade-focused domestic industries had to decarbonised to remain internationally competitive.
Despite wealthy nations’ pledged $R8.5-billion (approximately R150-billion) and further pledges and investments, South Africa faces a R660-billion financing shortfall for the just energy transition, expected to cost R1.5-trillion over five years. This was revealed by Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy in a response to a parliamentary question.
The return of Koeberg’s Unit 1 to commercial service has been delayed by a further 10 days as some critical tests are still to be completed before the reactor is started. The last date that Eskom provided for the return of Unit 1 from the extension of life project was 3 November. It is now expected to be returned around 13 November. Unit 2 will then be taken offline to replace its steam generators. The extension project will give Koeberg a 20-year extension of its licence, which expires in July 2024.
Africa is largely transitioning “from nothing”, says South Sudan Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol. Speaking on Africa’s agenda for the forthcoming COP28 at the African Energy Week held in Cape Town this week, Chol said to “transition means to move – we need to move to energy first before can talk about an energy transition. We need reliable, affordable and accessible energy, no matter where it comes from.”
Eskom insists its systems and strategies are in place to facilitate the seamless operation of the 6.8-million prepaid meters within its distribution areas after November 24 next year – the date by which the meters will no longer be able to accept electricity tokens unless they have been recoded to do so. All Standard Transfer Specification (STS) meters globally, including those in municipal distribution areas in South Africa, are subject to the cut-off deadline. The reason being that the Token Identifier, or TID, range, which is set against a base date of January 1, 1993, will be exhausted by in November 2024 unless reset.
Cabinet has approved the Green Hydrogen Commercialisation Strategy (GHCS) for implementation, with the goal of positioning South Africa as a major producer and exporter of green hydrogen. Government has estimated that the hydrogen economy has the potential to add 3.6% to gross domestic product by 2050 and create 370 000 jobs.
Eskom interim CEO Calib Cassim has described unlocking grid connection capacity, using curtailment, as an urgent priority while Eskom and other stakeholders assess funding options to expand the transmission network. Speaking at a climate conference in Johannesburg, Cassim reported that discussions were under way on how to ensure that more renewable-energy independent power producers (IPPs) were connected to the grid ahead of the large-scale grid-related investment that was being planned.
The Energy One Stop Shop, or EOSS, which was officially launched by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel in July, is in the ramp-up phase of a four-stage process aimed at fast-tracking the regulatory approvals required for new electricity projects to be connected to the grid. Cameron Mackay tells us more.
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