South Africa must slash red tape to close energy gap: ANC

Bloomberg

South Africa must accelerate plans to generate more electricity itself, buy more energy from private producers and make it easier for power-hungry mining companies to build their own plants, according to a draft economic policy document compiled by the nation’s governing party.
Projects outlined in the
government’s Integrated Resources Plan won’t be sufficient to end rolling blackouts, and the energy blueprint should be reviewed, the African National Congress (ANC) said in the document seen by Bloomberg. It called for privately built plants to be designated as strategic infrastructure projects, which would make it easier for them to get environmental approval, and for registration requirements to be streamlined.
“Policies are urgently required to increase investment in electricity-generation capacity and the energy mix both by public and private entities,” the party said in the latest version of one of several documents that are being drafted before its national policy conference later this year.
With regards to the state buying more electricity, “approvals should have a shorter time-frame, bid evaluation should be expedited and the process to procure additional capacity from existing independent power producers should be hastened,” it said.
ANC spokesman Pule Mabe didn’t respond to requests for comment. The document may undergo further changes before it’s submitted and won’t necessarily be adopted at the conference.
Africa’s most industrialised economy has been hit by intermittent power outages since 2008, with state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd unable to meet demand from its old and poorly maintained plants. Outages this year are on course to hit a record.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration has resuscitated plans to buy more power from independent producers and made it easier for companies to build their own plants, developers still complain about excessive red tape and difficulties in accessing the grid.
The ANC said investment in new plants could be accelerated if it were clarified that they didn’t require power-purchase agreements to go ahead.