It is unclear what its import was and it’s also anybody’s guess if the nation took note of what was meant to be an important announcement by government on how it intended to end the economically crippling rolling blackouts of the past few days.
On the surface, the announcement by the National Planning Commission appeared geared towards pacifying a weary but increasingly distrustful nation.
This is because what it announced — that new power generation and Eskom’s storage capacity should be prioritised — appeared to be basic elements of historical discourse on the nation’s energy challenges. This is what energy experts have been talking about for years. If, perhaps, this is new to government, then South Africans must be really worried.
The commission, a government agency responsible for long-term strategic planning for the country, has expressed its grave concern about the latest power cuts, which saw the country drop to the debilitating stage 6 of load-shedding.
It announced plans were afoot to ensure load-shedding becomes a thing of the past and that evidence existed which suggested this could happen within a minimum of three years.
This, it said, could be done through the construction of solar and wind power projects.
No surprises there for many South Africans.
The commission went on to say that for load-shedding to be a thing of the past, the declaration of an “energy emergency” was urgently required.
This declaration, it announced, would make it possible to override red tape preventing the acceleration of delivery of new generation capacity.
Such a declaration, said the commission, would see the “removal of key obstacles” which would allow for the overall goal of 10,000MW of new generation capacity and 5,000MW of storage.
While South Africans should be relieved that government, through the commission, is finally seeing the light, they could be forgiven for being left scratching their heads after the grand announcement.
One of the obstacles, it said, was the removal of Eskom’s ceiling on grid code and grid connection authorisation processes.
The ceiling now only allows 100MW of power to be added to the grid.
The commission also called for the scrapping of the National Energy Regulator of SA’s registration process, which it said delayed implementation of projects.
It said the process should be replaced with an online procedure for database purposes.
While South Africans should be relieved that government, through the commission, is finally seeing the light, they could be forgiven for being left scratching their heads after the grand announcement.
Given all the detail that went into the commission’s announcement about the required energy emergency declaration, government did not suddenly have a Eureka moment.
It is clear that it has been thinking for some time about how to solve SA’s lingering load-shedding crisis, which has been going on since 2008.
One could rightfully ask what has led government to suddenly make this announcement now.
Through the litany of advisers available to it, surely government would have known for years that to solve the energy crisis would require the declaration of an energy emergency.
Why then is government only now, after SA’s umpteenth bout of load-shedding, thinking about declaring an energy emergency?
What has suddenly changed between now and 2008 when load-shedding first began?
Most South Africans, energy experts and business owners, who have had to lay off thousands of workers because of load-shedding, could have told government that declaring an energy emergency is the most obvious thing to do.
Late though government’s entry to the debate appears, its suggestion will be a welcome relief to many.
Government must now stop talking and actually do what it says it is thinking about: cut the red tape by declaring an energy emergency so that the lights can stay on and our dwindling economy and jobs can be saved.
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