Any success in overcoming the blight of load-shedding hinges on economic growth and private sector involvement, according to electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
According to News24, Ramokgopa told senior KwaZulu-Natal government officials, business leaders and reporters that load-shedding would still be around for ‘some time’.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address earlier this month that the end of load-shedding was ‘finally within reach’.
Ramakgopa acknowledged that independent power producers were critical to reducing the impact of load shedding. Eskom itself would benefit from investing in renewables, he added – but it would need private sector investment to do so.
Eskom owned a vast amount of land for renewable energy and had grid capacity. Unfortunately, it had ‘a poor balance sheet’ and so its renewable energy plans must include the private sector.
The minister, however, was cautious about giving a deadline for the end of power cuts, stressing that investment and economic growth were needed first.
He said the country needed investors and economic growth to end load-shedding permanently, saying that it was necessary to ‘finance the acceleration of transmission capacity’ in order to add more power to the grid.
Ramakgopa said he was confident that the frequency and scale of load-shedding would be reduced over time.
[Image: Jack Moreh from Freerange Stock]