BL Premium reports that the National Planning Commission (NPC) has called for a wide-ranging intervention to alleviate SA’s long-standing energy crisis, including a declaration of an energy emergency.
The national advisory body, chaired by Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele, said declaring an energy emergency would help rid the country of the red tape that was making it difficult to bring in new generation capacity. Ongoing power cuts implemented by Eskom since last week have plunged households and businesses into darkness for up to six hours at a time, sparking fears that the country’s ailing economy could slip into a technical recession. The NPC said on Wednesday: “Ending load-shedding needs to become a unifying national goal for the whole country and all stakeholders. The most immediate priority is to ensure that new generation capacity is rapidly and urgently brought on to the grid, together with significant new storage capacity.” A wildcat strike at Eskom was suspended after a wage deal between Eskom and unions was reached on Tuesday. The power utility, which blamed the strike for the severe power cuts, said load-shedding would be gradually reduced from stage 6, but warned that its capacity remained constrained due to the backlog of maintenance at its power stations. SA’s energy crisis also featured during the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Monday where various interventions by the party in response to the crisis were adopted. This includes bringing in seasoned former Eskom technicians with the appropriate skills to provide assistance, facilitating private investment in new generation capacity and speeding up the repurposing of power stations with other energy sources.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thando Maeko at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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