BL Premium reports that according to Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, the state-owned power utility sent the government a list of potential board members for a national transmission company a year ago, but is still waiting for them to be appointed.
Speaking at the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday, he praised the speed of some of SA’s electricity reforms, but said it was taking too long for the independent transmission company to receive the necessary licences, legal framework and board in order for it to start operating. He asserted that Eskom had done everything in its power to enable the legal separation of its transmission business. The unbundling of Eskom into three separate units – transmission, generation and distribution – was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019. A legally binding merger agreement, in which Eskom agreed to transfer its transmission division, was finalised in December 2021 and in the same month it applied to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) for licences for the transmission, trading, import and export of electricity. A transmission company would manage the bulk movement of electricity from a power plant to an electrical substation. The outgoing CEO explained that a separate transmission company was essential to ending load-shedding and driving power generation as it would allow independent producers to compete fairly with Eskom when selling power onto the grid. Inadequate electricity transmission grids are the main impediment to new power generation investments, which are sorely needed as Eskom’s ageing unreliable coal fleet cannot provide sufficient power. The lack of a grid capacity for Northern Cape solar projects and Eastern Cape and Western Cape wind energy projects means new renewable power projects cannot be developed.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Katharine Child at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read too, Outgoing Eskom CEO frustrated at protracted unbundling of utility, at EWN
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