South Africa has unbundled its power sector by creating a new entity known as National Transmission Company of South Africa.
Energy and Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa launched the new entity on Monday, October 7, 2024.
The NTCSA is one of Eskom’s legal separations of three entities, namely generation, distribution and transmission.
The unbundling was first announced in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2019 State of the Nation Address.
Ramokgopa described the launch as a positive step towards energy security and electricity availability.
“What are the benefits to the country? The first one is you make the point to accelerate their onboarding of the renewable energy process. We know that there’s a misalignment between our assets, renewable energy assets and also grid capacity, constraints in the Cape Provinces, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and Western Cape.
So, if you must unlock those opportunities, we have stated today that we think it’s possible that by 2027 we can get an additional 11 000 mw on stream.”
The company started its operations on July 1. Some of the work has already been done, including the building of the country’s transmission infrastructure.
Service providers were appointed to help with the building of 14 000km stretch of transmission lines by 2032.
“Despite being a newly formed entity, the NTCSA has already made substantial progress in implementing its strategy. We have approved R112 billion for TDP investments in the next 5 years.
“Recognise that collaboration and public-private partnerships are critical to ensure that we achieve the top bill for TDP investment in the 53 000 mw of new generation connection required over the next decade.
“As communicated by Mr Skippers, the ministry and the NTCSA are working together on ITP solutions to attract additional private sector funding which will not impact NTCSA’s balance sheet,” said NTCSA’s chairperson, Priscillah Mabelane.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com