SA government, private sector and Saudi Arabia in talks about renewable energy

Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said there is a lot of work to do before government receives international support for the current energy crisis in the country.

Gungubele was briefing the media on Thursday on the outcomes of the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.

As expected, the current Eskom and load shedding crisis was discussed in the cabinet briefing with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Load shedding

This as the country continues to be subjected to unrelenting load shedding, with January 2022 the only month where there were no deliberate power cuts by the ailing state-owned enterprise Eskom.

ALSO READ: Load shedding set to continue until Monday morning – Eskom

Eskom on Thursday announced that rolling blackouts will continue until Monday morning in varying stages.

Committments and investment

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia said it would help South Africa accelerate its transition to cleaner energy.

The kingdom was in talks with the South African government to invest in renewable energy as the country battles one of its worst energy crises in decades.

Gungubele reiterated there was a lot of work being done to deal with the energy crisis in South Africa, including finalising commitments with international investors.

He said government is also moving at a rapid pace towards green energy generation in partnership with the private sector to add more megawatts to the strained electricity grid. He, however, could not give specific details on government’s progress.

“We have made that commitment, I cannot give you the exact report on how far we are, but that’s a huge commitment.”

“When we said we are opening up, remember the president had spoken several times that one of the worst things we did was to have one institution to be the generator of electricity. It’s not done, because what do you do when that collapses?”

Ramaphosa’s crisis intervention plan

Gungubele said this is the reason why Ramaphosa’s energy crisis intervention plan seeks to engage the private sector for generation capacity to enhance the electricity grid.

“There’s commitment to actually firm up the transmission infrastructure in many ways so that there are multiple ways in which energy goes to the grid and also dealing with the distribution.”

Water restrictions

Gugubele also highlighted the importance of water conservation, particularly during difficult times.

This comes after Rand Water implemented level 2 water restrictions affecting more than 11 million people in Gauteng.

Gungubele said cabinet has called on the public to continue adhering to water restrictions and play their part in using this scarce resource sparingly.

“The water utility supplies bulk public water to more than 11 million people in Gauteng, parts of Mpumalanga, Free State and North West. These unavoidable restrictions aim to ensure that there is water supply and will remain in place until the situation improves. Cabinet called on the public to continue adhering to the water restrictions,” he said.

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