Govt is implementing energy reforms: Ramaphosa

JOHANNESBURG - President Cyril Ramaphosa says government is implementing a wide range of reforms to address the country’s energy crisis.

He says one of those methods is allowing private investment in the sector.

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Ramaphosa says government’s solar tax incentive will assist households and businesses who are looking to invest in the sector.

He said, "we have been implementing wide-ranging reforms in the electricity sector to enable private investment in electricity generation and accelerate the procurement of new generation capacity from solar, wind, gas and battery storage.

"One of these reforms regarding the removal of the licensing threshold for embedded generation, has facilitated considerable private investment in the electricity sector.

"This reform, together with measures to streamline regulatory processes, has enabled a surge of new projects, with the pipeline of committed projects now representing over 10,000 MW of new capacity.

"Several municipalities are making use of regulatory changes to procure power independently.

"We have introduced tax incentives for households and businesses to invest in rooftop solar. We have called for financial institutions to support this effort through affordable funding for households and small and medium enterprises. The government will assist poor households through a number of programmes.

"The debt transfer package for Eskom, together with the progress made in unbundling the utility, will enable the necessary investment in the transmission network and in maintenance of Eskom’s generation fleet.

We expect the National Transmission Company to be fully operational shortly.”