Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe reiterated that the government will amend the Electricity Regulation Act to allow private companies to generate up to 100MW of electricity.
It follows the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa a few months ago that electricity generation by private parties would be increased from 10MW to 100MW.
This came at the time the country has been battling load-shedding with Eskom dealing with the maintenance of its coal-fired power stations.
Mantashe said in a written reply in Parliament after IFP MP Themba Msimang asked whether the government would increase power generation by private companies, this would be done.
“Yes. Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act will be amended to increase the Nersa (National Energy Regulator of South Africa) licensing threshold for embedded generation projects from 1MW to 100MW,” said Mantashe.
The announcement by government to increase generation by private companies comes also after Eskom announced this week that Medupi reached the completion stage after the last unit came into operation.
Medupi was first built in 2007 and the costs have increased over the years.
The government had decided to build Ingula, Medupi and Kusile power stations to generate more electricity to ease the load shedding.
“Eskom is pleased to announce that on Saturday Unit 1, the last of six generation units of the Medupi Power Station Project in Lephalale, attained commercial operation status and was thus handed over to the Generation division,” Eskom said.
“This milestone marks the completion of all building activities on the 4 764MW project, which commenced in May 2007.
“The planned operational life of the station is 50 years.”
Political Bureau