Page 10 - Energize July 2022

NEWS

Wind industry welcomes presidential

support of accelerated energy

transformation

esponding to President Ramaphosa’s address on the budget vote (9 June 2022),
the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) applauds the President’s
Runequivocal support of the energy sector’s transformation. Furthermore, the
industry welcomes the presidency’s clarity of the various reforms.
Fundamentally, the Association points out that the reforms and work underway will
deliver a robust, competitive energy sector with multiple generators competing to supply
electricity at the lowest cost and selling power directly to customers, which will go a long
way in supporting local business and South Africans individually.
“This is a historical moment in our country as we are recreating not only our energy
generation sector, but providing stable foundations for economic growth that is in line
with the National Development Plan which sees 2030 as a time when South Africa will
reduce its dependency on carbon,” commented Niveshen Govender, SAWEA CEO.
Ramaphosa clearly outlined the work underway, which is aimed at increasing the
energy availability factor (EAF), and closing the electricity gap between generation and
demand, which is the root cause of load shedding. These include ensuring that projects
from existing procurement programmes, including Bid Window 5 of REIPPPP, reach
financial close and are connected to the grid as quickly as possible; accelerating private
sector investment in generation capacity under 100 MW; enabling Eskom to purchase Niveshen Govender
surplus power from existing power producers; supporting municipalities to procure power
independently; and encouraging households and businesses to invest in small-scale solar the Integrated Resource Plan and
power installations and feed energy to the grid, amongst others. the procurement of electricity from
“The interventions are in line with the RE sector advocacy efforts. We believe that this independent power producers for
step change that we are experiencing will alleviate the impact of power disruptions and many years, and wishes him well on
allow us to build back better. While these are ambitious intervention, strong leadership is his journey to drive and support the
required to move us forward,” added Govender. energy transition in a fair and equitable
The wind sector is excited by Cabinet’s approval of the appointment of Jacob Mbele manner.
as the new Director-General (DG) for the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy,
as announced by Minister Mondli Gungubele, recently. On behalf of its members, SAWEA Contact SAWEA, Phone 010 007-5655,
welcomes Mr Mbele, who is currently a Deputy Director-General for general programmes admin@sawea.co.za,
and projects at the department, noting that he has been intimately involved with both https://sawea.org.za

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