Load shedding, rising tariffs will push consumers off the grid | Saturday Star - IOL

Wimpy staff members use a LED light powered by batteries to write out invoices during electricity load shedding. Businesses and consumers in South Africa had to face another day of Stage 2 lelectricity load shedding. Eskom announced on Wednesday that most of Thursday will be affected by the selected electricity outages in most parts of the country.  Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA)

Johannesburg - Electricity disruptions, driven by load shedding, the poor quality of supply and high electricity tariffs will push more South Africans to migrate away from the grid - or stop paying for electricity at all.

This is contained in the long overdue 2019 Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity (IRP2019), which was gazetted on Friday.

The revised plan, which maps out SA’s future energy sources including coal, nuclear and renewable energy for the next decade, acknowledges that as wholesale and retail electricity tariffs rise, more electricity users will ditch Eskom to meet their energy needs.

“We can expect more electricity users to look for alternatives like rooftop PV (photovoltaic) systems (residential) or utility scale PV generation (mines and other big industrial users) and migrate away from the electricity grid,” the IRP2019, which was approved by the cabinet this week, states.

“More fuel switching is to be expected, particularly in regard to the thermal load (water heating, cooking and space heating) as electricity tariffs increase and alternatives like LP gas become available and cost effective.”

from Top stories - Google News https://ift.tt/2qoNykc
via IFTTT