PHUTI MOSOMANE
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates at the Mining Indaba 2023 in Cape Town that the mining sector was hugely impacted by Eskom electricity blackouts, but the country is investing in new generation capacity.
Ramaphosa said six months ago, the government announced a National Energy Action Plan to improve the performance of existing power stations and to add new generation capacity to the grid as quickly as possible.
He told delegates that Eskom has assembled experienced technical teams to improve performance and recover capacity at power stations, with an initial focus on the six least reliable stations.
”Through a regional power pool arrangement, we have already imported 300 MW of capacity from neighbouring countries and are working to increase this by an additional 1,000 MW.”
”The successful renewable energy programme is being strengthened,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Investing in African Mining Indaba held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Western Cape.
In the last six months, Ramaphosa said 25 projects agreements representing 2,800 MW of new capacity have since been signed.
These projects will soon be proceeding to construction.
”We are facilitating investment in new generation capacity by private producers by, among other things, removing the licensing threshold for embedded generation projects,” he added.
Eskom is looking to purchase surplus power from companies with available generation capacity.
The mining sector has been making significant moves towards generating its own electricity.
According to the Minerals Council of South Africa, since the licensing threshold was lifted, approximately 89 embedded power generation projects have been developed, with a focus on renewable energy solutions like solar, wind and battery storage.
Not only will these projects support mining operations themselves and bring down operating costs, but they will also add much needed power to the country’s overall supply and support South Africa’s decarbonisation process, he said, adding that mining is leading the way in developing other new energy technologies.
Last year, Anglo American launched of the world’s largest hydrogen-powered mine haul truck.
Anglo is developing an entire hydrogen ecosystem to support its local operations, and the launch of the nuGen truck was the first project for the Green Hydrogen Valley, hoping to develop from Limpopo to KwaZulu-Natal.
South Africa has abundant renewable energy resources and about 75% of the world’s platinum resources, which puts the countrty in a favourable position to develop such technologies.
The second part of government’s efforts to develop the mining industry, he said is to accelerate economic reforms to improve the operating environment.
”We have been driving a range of structural reforms through Operation Vulindlela, an initiative of the Presidency in partnership with the National Treasury, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and other key departments,” he said.
As part of streamlining regulatory processes, he said government is reducing the timeframes for environmental authorisations, exempting energy projects from environmental authorisations for certain activities, and speeding up the process of registering new projects and grid connection approvals.
A critical area of reform is in logistics, which is a huge problem for the mining industry, the Indaba discussed.
In 2022, coal exports through the Richards Bay Coal Terminal dropped to about 50 million tonnes, the worst performance since 1993.
It is estimated that infrastructure inefficiencies have resulted in a 15% decline in mineral sales.
Ramaphosa also welcomed the partnership announced late last year between the Minerals Council of South Africa and Transnet to stabilise and restore the operational performance of our rail lines and ports.
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