Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has gazetted new rules to get more power to the grid in a bid to beat load shedding.
The gazetted rules, published for public comment on Friday, enable some of the interventions for the energy crisis announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July.
Notably, they target licensing exemptions for generation projects. Ramaphosa had previously said the licence threshold on 100MW projects would be removed entirely. These projects still need to be registered with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).
Projects that do not require a licence include:
- All projects – regardless of capacity – that do not have a point of connection to the grid.
- Projects that are meant for providing standby or backup power in the event of supply interruptions like load shedding.
- Projects with a capacity of 100kW that comply with regulatory codes and have a point of connection to the grid.
The exemption also applies to projects that directly feed their customers or those that have to wheel power using transmission lines to their customers.
There is a 30-day comment period from the time of publishing. The public can find the gazette here.