Give them time: Mantashe claps back at load-shedding criticisms

Gwede Mantashe has clapped back at criticism about load-shedding, saying he is not an engineer and doesn't pretend to be one. 

The mineral resources and energy minister delivered a keynote address at the 2022 Windaba energy conference in Cape Town this week.

He called on the public to give renewable energy projects time to generate power, saying load-shedding will not be resolved in a few days. 

“When people want to have a dig at me, they say ‘Ja, we need more renewables and there will be no load-shedding'. I am not an engineer and I don’t pretend to be one, but I always tell them my experience is that when you deal with renewables, you give the contract [and] you have an agreement with them. You must give them time to build the plant to generate energy. 

“So if you give a permit for any renewable project to come on the stream, don’t expect them to resolve load-shedding this weekend. They will build it, [it can take up to] 12 months or 18 months, and then [that energy is generated]. That is my experience. Engineers can correct me if I’m wrong.”

According to Mantashe, to deal with load-shedding Eskom must service the gap between 26,000 and 58,000 megawatts. 

“[Thereafter] we will deal with load-shedding in the immediate [term] and then build renewables [for] security in the long-term.”

Addressing the media after signing three project agreements, the minister said society was understandably upset about high stages of load-shedding, but the crisis was a global phenomenon. 

“South Africans see themselves as an island, when the electric energy crisis is a global phenomenon. South Africans don’t accept that. They think this is a local crisis, but we have a responsibility to address our crisis. We are in crisis mode and have to work hard to resolve it.”  

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