Africa-Press – South-Africa. Reports of licensed projects released by the National Energy Regulator (Nersa) show that there has been a massive spike in registered self-generation projects, with the worst years of load shedding in South Africa seeing the biggest surge.
Eskom has been struggling to meet demand since 2008, and has subjected the nation to blackouts, with 6,947 hours of load shedding in 2023 to protect the grid from collapse. Though the utility has said several thosands of additional MW are needed, new projects have been slow to come online.
Subsequently, the number of registered sustainable projects has skyrocketed, producing 6,389 MW of much-needed electricity to the country since 2018.
Meanwhile, MyBroadband reports that South Africans had installed around 5,200MW (5.2GW) of private solar capacity by the end of 2023.The majority of these projects are known as “own generation” projects, which are largely established by shopping malls, farms, mines, and businesses in attempts to alleviate the impact load shedding has on business.
Back in June 2021, the minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, published recommendations for amendments to the Electricity Regulation Act, which would allow businesses and individuals to generate up to 100MW of electricity without a license from the National Electricity Regulator South Africa (Nersa), subject to meeting various codes.
This 100MW cap was later removed entirely, opening up the market to a flood of own-generation projects.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
