No more load shedding – This suburb is ready to give Eskom the boot

Linbro Park, situated near Sandton, Johannesburg is tired of load shedding and is in the process of ditching Eskom to produce electricity from a private power producer instead.

Residents in a section of Linbro Park through Greenstone Energy have asked the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to supply the area with electricity using gas-powered plants, Mybroadband reported.

Greenstone offers private power solutions using various sources, including solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, wind, biomass, and gas-solar hybrid solutions.

Goodbye, load shedding

If approved, the gas-power plants would serve 1,781 households, three offices, two schools, two churches, a hotel, and a conference centre.

According to Linbro Park residents, they have had 66 days of power cuts aside from load shedding. However, Eskom has denied this, saying only 29 outages have occurred. 

The South African Independent Power Producers Association chair, Tommy Garner, says Eskom hasn’t met the requirements for its distribution licence in the area.

Eskom wasn’t happy

They first lodged an application to Nersa in October 2021 to have Greenstone supply them electricity. Eskom opposed their application. 

Residents of Linbro Park want to acquire an initial 1MW of gas generation from Greenstone, increasing to 5.8MW as developments in the area expand.

The first phase of the project is projected to be completed by July 2022 and has already enlarged the pipeline from Egoli Gas.

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It has also started commissioning the generating units and distribution system.

Eskom argues two distributors cannot operate within the same area, which would go against Nersa’s rules, as it may pose a danger to have two distribution networks running underground in the suburb. 

Should the application be successful, Greenstone will be the first firm to receive approval for private power generation under 100MW since President Cyril Ramaphosa lifted the minimum threshold from 1MW in June 2021.

Eskom has been battling to keep the lights on, added on that is having to deal with damming findings from the fourth part of the state capture report.

Chief Justice Raymond Zondo recommended criminal prosecution of the 2014 board of directors at Eskom.

This is to “recover all the financial losses suffered by Eskom as a result of decisions taken by the 2014 board (except Norman Baloyi) against the interests of Eskom”.