President Ramaphosa lifts power generation licence threshold to reduce load shedding

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has announced an increase in the licence threshold for people to generate power from 1MW to 100MW to lift the economy.

Ramaphosa yesterday announced that they were increasing the Nersa licensing threshold for embedded generation projects from 1MW to 100MW.

This comes after Eskom implemented load shedding in the past few days.

Ramaphosa said they will boost the economy and enable the country to have energy security.

He denied they were taking the bread from Eskom’s mouth, saying the power utility needed competition.

“Although some will argue we are taking bread out of Eskom’s mouth, no we are not,” said Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa said this was important to reduce the impact of load shedding.

“Following an extensive public consultation process and a significant amount of technical work undertaken by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, we will be amending schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act to increase the Nersa licensing threshold for embedded generation projects from 1MW to 100MW.

This intervention reflects our determination to take the necessary action to achieve energy security and reduce the impact of load shedding on businesses and households across the country,” said Ramaphosa.

He said the country needed energy security if South Africa wanted to grow the economy.