The price of electricity is at risk of becoming unmanageable and uncontrollable and coupled with increased inflation, this may lead to more pressure on South African consumers.
This week, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa brought up this issue in his weekly update on the Energy Action Plan (EAP).
He flagged the significant increases in electricity tariffs and called for changes to SA’s electricity pricing policies.
The minister noted that this would a dramatic impact on households facing hardships and financial pressure.
“Our electricity pricing plan needs to kick in, and that is the primary preoccupation of the ministry now, working with Eskom’s distribution division and municipalities,” Ramokgopa explained.
South Africans can take cognisance of the fact that Eskom and SA’s municipalities are working to find a solution to the rising cost of electricity prices.
SA’s power grid is getting stronger but load shedding is not over
Ramokgopa told the media that this week that the country’s power grid is expected to be strengthened by more generating units by the end of August.
“We are expecting Medupi Unit 4 to give us 800 megawatts (MW) and to fire up Kusile Unit 6, which is another 800MW,” he explained.
“We are hoping to get an extension of life of Koeberg Unit 2 and we are not complacent. We are doing everything by the book and we are still optimistic about getting that extension of life, and it will give us an additional 980MW,” the minister added.
He said that by the end of August, government expected the country could get a further 2,500MW from the Eskom fleet.
The minister said while South Africans have been enjoying 141 days without load shedding, the energy crisis is not over.
He said that government remains “buoyant” when it comes to Eskom’s performance but load shedding is still not a thing of the past.
“I really want to caution that load shedding is not behind us. In the next three weeks or so Eskom will be sharing what the summer outlook is. We are still buoyant about the performance of these generation plants,” he noted.
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