BUSA welcomes today’s announcement by President Ramaphosa that the licencing exemption threshold under schedule 2 of the ERA will be lifted to 100MW. This amendment will go a long way to unlocking embedded generation to enable security of supply, investment, and growth.

BUSA believes that upwards of 16000 direct jobs can be created (based on a 50MW threshold). Job creation is likely to be significantly higher based on 100MW. We are confident that the economies of scale unlocked by 100MW will likely enable further investment, job creation and development of local industrial capacity.

While this change is well received, BUSA believes every day of delay and load shedding adds to our economic pressures and urges government to publish this amendment within 30-days of this announcement to expedite projects in this space.

We welcome the decisiveness demonstrated by President Ramaphosa in this area. This is a decision that should have been taken by DMRE sometime ago, but the announcement by the President is, we hope, the beginning of a trend where the President will act decisively to unblock numerous blockages in delivery that, if unlocked, would significantly increase confidence, and attract investment and enable economic growth!

ENDS

Cas Coovadia

CEO of Business Unity South Africa