DA warns of power shortages over Eskom's IPP decision

Eskom’s decision not to sign on any more independent power producers, after the current round of contracts was finalised, would lead to electricity shortages and blackouts, the DA said last week. According to a report on the SABC News site, DA MP Gordon Mackay said: ‘The decision by the Board of Eskom to discontinue the signing-on of any power purchasing agreements with Independent Power Producers (IPP) will suffocate the national power grid and lead to more blackouts in the future as 2 145 MW will be excluded.’ ‘According to the Integrated Resource Plan (2010), 17 800 MW of the 2030 energy target is expected to be from renewable energy sources, which may be negated with this decision,’ he added. It was reported last week that Eskom board chair Ben Ngubane had written to Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Petterson to inform her that the board would not sign more power purchase agreements without engagement. Mackay said he would urge Joemat-Petterson to reverse the decision and demand that the Eskom board give the proper reasons behind it because suggestions that buying more power from independent producers would threaten the utility’s balance sheet did not hold water. ‘Large scale and small scale businesses dependent on stable electricity supply such as the manufacturing and mining industries will have no choice but to shed jobs as their costs rise and output decreases due to the blocking of IPP’s by Eskom,’ the report quotes him as saying.