Pretoria – Officials from the Departments of Public Enterprises, Energy and National Treasury are expected to meet this week to thrash out a “roadmap” to strengthen the position of Eskom.
“…This week the Departments of Energy, Public Enterprises and National Treasury have to meet to propose to the three ministers a roadmap that will assist us to strengthen the position of Eskom. Key in the interventions will be to ensure that the construction of new plants is kept on track,” said Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Monday.
She said a meeting had been held between the Ministries of Public Enterprises and Energy and Eskom last week.
In his State of the Nation Address earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma called for a decisive response to the country’s energy constraints in order to create a conducive environment for growth.
He said the situation called for a radical transformation of the energy sector, to develop a sustainable energy mix that comprises coal, solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear energy as well as structural changes in the manner in which government departments, affected state owned companies and the industry as a whole address the energy challenges.
The minister said she had directed the Department of Energy to accelerate the pace on the Independent Power Producer (IPP) programme and would make further announcements in this regard next month.
“The debate on nuclear energy has gone on for a long time and perhaps this was necessary. The time has however now come for some decisive actions to be taken in this regard.
“In the next few weeks, I will outline a comprehensive roadmap that will lead us to a firm decision on the nuclear build programme.”
She explained that key to the roadmap was ensuring that the 29 and 30 year old units at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station continue producing power for another three decades. This would involve some life extending refurbishments at the power plant.
The minister said it was not the first time the department had been given “big tasks”.
“In the past few years, the department was asked to roll out an energy mix with a renewable energy bias and this was done quite successfully. On IPPs, we will focus on ensuring that communities derive benefit where these programmes are located.”
Minister Joemat-Pettersson said an area that had to begin yielding tangible progress was the biofuels sector.
She said they had been working on this sector for the past few years and it was time for certainty on the regulatory framework on pricing.
“I can assure stakeholders that I intend to engage with the obstacles to progress on this matter, and ensure that they are removed. Biofuels has a potential to contribute to economic development, particularly on job creation.”
She added that delays should no longer be tolerated.
Government has also set a target of an additional 1.3 million solar water geysers to be installed in households in the next five years. The minister said this target should not only be attained but change the consumption patterns for electricity in the country.
“Key to this programme is localisation of component manufacturing as well as job creation during installation and maintenance. We will not compromise on local content requirements.”
Minister Joemat-Pettersson said the President had called on government to unlock economic growth by eliminating impediments to such growth.
“In this portfolio, I am determined that we dispense with some of the issues that have been left hanging for far too long.
“On energy, our marching orders are very clear. We aspire to achieve an energy mix which has greatly reduced carbon intensity. We only have 15 years to get there and my approach is that we should attain our energy security aspirations much sooner than that.” – SAnews.gov.za
