Grid, market and skills identified by energy council as key reform priorities
Energy Council of South Africa CEO James Mackay has highlighted three priorities for the organisation, whose public and private member companies have seconded some 300 professionals to support the implementation of government’s Energy Action Plan since its launch in 2022 to tackle intense loadshedding and to support electricity reform.
In a statement released following the council’s recent AGM, Mackay again warned that the risk of loadshedding persisted, because new generation was not coming online at the pace required.
In addition, reform implementation was proving “complex and challenging”, while there was insufficient fiscal and skills capacity to address the various system-wide risks that prevailed in the electricity sector.
Mackay said that trade-offs would be required to keep the transition and reforms moving, while highlighting three immediate areas that he felt the council should prioritise, namely:
- building grid capacity and creating clarity in relation to grid-access rules;
- supporting a risk-adjusted and phased introduction of the South African Wholesale Electricity Market from 2026 to improve transparency, price discovery and competitive tension; and
- providing support for public sector capacitation, especially at the Department of Electricity and Energy and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
Chairperson Simon Baloyi, who is also Sasol CEO, underlined the role that the council had played within the National Energy Crisis Committee and Business for South Africa in tackling the loadshedding crisis.
Baloyi highlighted, in particular, the council’s ability to convene diverse stakeholders to tackle the crisis and said collaboration would remain important to position the energy industry for a "different future”.
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