Gwede wants the state to compete with the state

Energy minister Gwede Mantashe says that a second state power generation company would fall under his department and generate electricity alongside Eskom.

He told the Sunday Times that a move to renewables was more ‘ideological than technical’. Were it not for this ideology, the country would already have Karpowership’s floating power plants up and running, he said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the creation of a new energy-producing system would assist in alleviating the risk posed by the failings of the current system.

‘If we look at other countries like China, it has a number of state-owned electricity generating companies that compete amongst themselves to bring prices down,’ Ramaphosa said in a speech to a meeting of the South African Communist Party on Friday. ‘That is a future that we should begin to imagine.’

Mantashe said that a second state-owned company would need more power stations to be built. ‘So what we are suggesting — it’s not a decision yet — is let’s have a second generation company of the state, and that generation company must focus on baseload, and there must be a build programme for power stations,’ Mantashe said.

‘We can’t allow power stations to only hear (sic) decommission, we must also have a build programme, and we think that if Eskom has no capacity, let’s start a second generation company.’

It will be a generation company; transmission will be done by an independent company. Mantashe said the new company would sit at the centre, and source energy from anywhere, including the private sector.

‘All that excites me is that the president begins to talk to me. It means he is warming to the idea, and that to me is a call for me to act with speed,’ said Mantashe.