Johnathan Paoli
President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the government is on track to resolve the most important constraints on economic growth by stabilising the energy supply and fixing the logistics system.
The president made the announcement during the State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening at Cape Town City Hall.
Ramaphosa said that a clear plan to end load shedding was set out, implemented with a single-minded focus through the National Energy Crisis Committee.
“We have delivered on our commitments to bring substantial new power through private investment to the grid, which is already helping to reduce load shedding,” the President said.
He confirmed the provision of a major debt relief package by the government last year in order to enable Eskom to make investments in maintenance and transmission infrastructure and ensure its sustainability going forward.
The President said the utility connected more than 2,500 MW of solar and wind power to the grid, since the revival of the renewable energy programme five years ago, with three times this amount already in procurement or construction and that through tax incentives and financial support, the amount of rooftop solar capacity installed across the country has more than doubled in just the past year.
He said the government implemented sweeping regulatory reforms to enable private investment in electricity generation, with more than 120 new private energy projects now in development.
“These are phenomenal developments that are driving the restructuring of our electricity sector in line with what many other economies have done to increase competitiveness and bring down prices,” Ramaphosa said.
The President said that the reformation of the energy system was fundamental to ensuring a similar crisis would never be faced again and that this would assist making the utility more competitive, sustainable and reliable in the future.
Ramaphosa said that the government intended to build more than 14,000km of new transmission lines to accommodate renewable energy over the coming years.
He said that the government would enable private investment in transmission infrastructure through a variety of innovative investment models, to fast-track this process.
In order to support the restructuring of Eskom and establish a competitive electricity market, the president said that the ANC led government tabled the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill last year.
Furthermore, the President highlighted the potential of the Northern Cape, with its optimal solar conditions, and said that it had already attracted billions of rands in investment.
He confirmed the establishment of the Special Economic Zone in the Boegoebaai port to drive investment in green energy and that there was a great deal of interest from the private sector to participate in the boom that will be generated by green hydrogen energy projects.
“We have decided to support electric vehicle manufacturing in South Africa to grow our automotive sector, which provides good jobs to thousands of workers,” Ramaphosa said.
In addition to the special focus given to regions like Mpumalanga to enable the creation of new industries, new economic opportunities and sustainable jobs; Ramaphosa said that this was in line with the dive to increasing the financing pledges for the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan from around R170 billion to almost R240 billion.
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