Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the media and thank you for affording us the opportunity to brief you on the work of this important forum. As you know the National Stakeholder Advisory Council on Electricity met this morning to provide a review of progress made since government and stakeholders agreed on a multi-stakeholder approach to address electricity emergency that started in January 2008.
This advisory council is a product of the Energy Summit convened by National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) in May 2008. It consists of government, business, labour and community as represented at NEDLAC. The advisory council is supported by the national electricity emergency response team (NERT) comprising all social partners. Government and the social partners are fully committed to consultation on future decisions.
A number of reports and proposals were presented and reviewed by the meeting. In particular, NERT presented proposals on the following key issues that require urgent attention and implementation in order to mitigate the possible electricity shortages:
* Key proposals were made and it was agreed that a policy framework on private sector participation in the electricity sector, taking into consideration the current policy positions, need to be developed as soon as possible.
* The need to ensure system security and reliability, by ensuring that we avoid power cuts. Social partners agreed that Eskom’s efforts to improve the efficiency of generation and distribution capacity should be supported.
Municipalities should also be encouraged and supported when they conduct routine maintenance of their infrastructure. This will help avoid supply failures. The recommendation in this regard, is that a contingency plan be developed and implemented before the anticipated high demand period of June 2010. We need to investigate the development of programmes to enhance current plant performance and capacity.
* Enabling economic growth, whilst there have been interventions that seek to manage the use of energy, there is a need to ensure that the system supports economic growth and job creation objectives. The council suggested that we need to investigate the socio economic impact of electricity costs and urgently introduce incentives for voluntary rationing where necessary and feasible. These need to be efficiently rolled out through the supporting regulation and institutional mechanisms. On the demand side management, there is an urgent need to accelerate the National Solar Water Heating programme. The council also noted a recommendation that a Standard Offer Incentive programme be fast-tracked and the establishment of a non-conflicted independent system and market operator be prioritised to open up space for independent power producers.
* In terms of governance and delivery, in the process of putting in place interventions to ensure that the country fully recovers from the energy emergency, the meeting agreed that established structures like the Energy Council and NERT should be fully capacitated and streamlined. Decisions of these structures should be tracked and communicated widely among stakeholders and the public. More importantly, the meeting noted the proposed critical path for managing the emergency between now and June 2010 (start of another pick period), attached to this statement as an annexure.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with us that there is a need for us to fully exploit energy efficiency measures. We call on all South Africans to reduce electricity usage by at least 10 percent. This will immediately increase our reserve margins to levels above 13 percent. So, let us switch off air conditioners, geysers, heaters and lights unless we absolutely need them!
In all of this work we are guided by three (3) principles:
* Sustained higher rates of growth and employment creation
* Protection of the poor, workers, middle class and small businesses from higher tariffs
* Limitation of negative impact on the environment by adopting environmentally friendly electricity generation sources, for example: solar, nuclear, wind and hydro.
In addition stakeholders were encouraged to make their submissions to NERSA before Wednesday, 14 December 2009. All stakeholders were further requested to ensure that there is maximum participation by all South Africans across all provinces during the public hearings. Government is of the view that stakeholders have made great strides in keeping with their commitment to becoming more energy efficient. I would like to commend them for the work that they have done. I encourage them to continue with their commitment.
Save it!
I thank you
Issued by: The Presidency
8 December 2009
Source: The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/)
