EIUG supports Eskom plan for new pricing deals with power-intensive firms

The Energy Intensive User Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) believes there is policy, legislative and regulatory space to introduce new electricity pricing arrangements to help restart of idle mining and process-industry activities, as well as encourage new investments to absorb Eskom’s surplus, which it sees persisting for a number of years yet. Amid flat demand and rising supply, the State-owned power utility claims to have up to 4 000 MW of surplus available on a daily basis and has indicated that the excess-supply situation will persist until at least 2021 – a marked departure from the recent past, when it resorted to rotational load-shedding to avoid a national blackout.