Kevin Mileham, DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, and DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Portfolio, Ghaleb Cachalia MP, are to conduct an oversight visit to the town of Frankfort.
The community of Frankfort has gone off grid, and there are bullying tactics by Eskom and Nersa to block the project.
According to reports, Eskom is threatening to block the private power distributor, Rural Maintenance, from setting reduced load-shedding schedules for the town of Frankfort, despite having procured additional solar power from the town.
Instead of supporting Frankfort’s efforts to go off grid and lessen the load on the constrained national grid, Eskom is going after Rural Maintenance for reducing load-shedding schedules by buying electricity from four solar farms in the area and supplying it to the town.
Eskom and NERSA may not be happy that Rural Maintenance is procuring the renewable power at a lower tariff than what Eskom is charging.
‘Despite failing to meet the country’s power supply needs for close to 15 years, Eskom now feels threatened by these off-grid initiatives and has resorted to bullying tactics to stop them from getting off the ground.’
Emphasis has been placed on increasing small embedded generation as a means of diversifying energy sources and reducing reliance on Eskom. Mileham says that Eskom’s approach confirms the policy discord that permeates within the ANC government.
The City of Cape Town and Stellenbosch Municipality are on course to become free from Eskom load-shedding. Mileham says that the DA will not allow South Africa to be held to ransom by Eskom.
Nersa and Eskom should be making it easy, not difficult, for communities and individuals to go off grid if they have the capacity to do so.