President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday announced a number of measures to reduce load shedding and add more megawatts to the grid by the end of the year.

The Cape Argus reports that he said the immediate priority of the government was to achieve energy security and he denied that the grid faced a collapse.

Ramaphosa, who was delivering his budget vote in Parliament, said government would procure about 10 000MW of new generation capacity after more than 100 projects were implemented.

They will also get 2 800MW from Bid Window 5 and 6.

‘In the coming months, we will initiate the procurement of more than 10000MW of additional generation capacity from wind, solar, gas and battery storage, which will further contribute to closing the shortfall in energy supply,’ said Ramaphosa. 

Government is hoping it will get another 4 500MW once six units at Medupi, Kusile and Koeberg were back online by the end of the year following repairs.

The government will continue with plans to delay the decommissioning of some of the power stations to be able to meet the energy demand.

The Cape Times reports that he said that over the past nine months, progress had been made in implementing the measures that were outlined in the energy action plan, including allowing the private sector to invest in electricity generation projects of any size, accelerating the procurement of new generation capacity, enabling municipalities to procure power independently, driving progress on the unbundling of Eskom into separate entities for generation, transmission and distribution, and making progress in decisively addressing Eskom’s debt burden.

Ramaphosa also announced that they would allow third parties to enter the rail network.

‘Transnet is working to establish a separate infrastructure manager within Transnet Freight Rail, which will enable third party access to the core rail network,’ he said.

Full Cape Argus report