This comes as thousands of experts, industry leaders and innovators gathered at the African Utility Week and PowerGen Africa conference in Cape Town this week to discuss innovative new ways of solving the energy and water problems on the continent.
Speaking at the conference, Energy Minister Jeff Radebe announced that he had written to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to grant businesses licences to generate its own electricity and feed it into the national grid.
This would allow businesses to make such an application while the long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) remains unfinalised.
The plan will enable the participation of Independent Power Producers (IPP) to work side by side with Eskom and municipalities.