BBC response to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on loadshedding briefing

2 August 2022

The BBC has noted the briefing by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the load shedding crisis. The BBC wishes to reiterate that the root cause of the current power emergency is the shortage of baseload dispatchable power due to the poor performance of the current Eskom fleet.

Therefore, the BBC strongly supports those interventions that are aimed at fixing Eskom and improving the availability of its generation capacity. The BBC reiterates that this is the most critical intervention in ending load shedding in South Africa.

As such, the BBC believes that any power generation solution should not be based on a simple 'arithmetic of megawatts.' Each generation technology has specific technical characteristics and application, and therefore megawatts from different technologies cannot simply be added up to resolve load shedding. A baseload crisis cannot be resolved by merely adding intermittent non-dispatchable renewable energy to the grid.

In this regard the BBC notes that the Risk Mitigation Power Procurement Programme (RMIPPP) was aimed at procuring 2000MW of capacity which will be dispatchable between 05h00 and 21h30. But, to date, only 150MW have reached financial close out of 1845MW from preferred bidders which were selected. This needs to be expedited.

The BBC does not support any action that seeks to do away with localisation and empowerment, in the midst of our record-breaking unemployment as this will continue to create jobs outside South Africa. The BBC still reiterates that the current Eskom board and management are not the right people to get us out of this misery and should be released from their responsibilities as a matter of urgency.

Issued by Black Business Council, 2 August 2022