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SA’s Nersa extends lockdown closure
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH Africa’s energy regulator Nersa has extended its closure during the current corona- virus (COVID-19) lockdown, effectively putting the country’s IPP licensing process on hold.
Nersa initially said on March 26 that it would close until April 26. The company has now extended this to April 30, in line with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announce- ment that the lockdown would be extended by two weeks.
Nersa has defended its action against crit- icism by IPP developers, saying that it had “recently received concerns regarding delays in decision making, particularly related to the approval of licence and registration applications from independent power producers during the lockdown period”.
However, the regulator said that participa- tion involvement in the licensing process, such as presenting objections, could not be conducted during the lockdown. The closure means that a number of major decisions have been delayed. These include finalising municipal electricity tar- iffs and that are due to come into force on July 1.
One biggest issue is that Nersa cannot approve the Mineral Resources Ministry’s emergency procurement of additional generation capacity as well as the next round of renewable energy.
In March, Nersa announced it would carry
out consultations before accepting bids in the current IPP round for 11,813 MW of generating capacity, of which 6,800 MW is renewable.
All this means that much-needed financial or regulatory decisions are now on hold, consider- ably damaging Eskom’s ability to push through reforms and perform vital maintenance.
There are concerns that the procurement pro- cess is again being drawn out unnecessarily.
Meanwhile, Nersa CEO Chris Forlee has been suspended. Nersa chair Jacob Modise told staff on March 25 before the lockdown that South African Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe had placed Forlee on precautionary suspension earlier that day. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy confirmed Forlee’s sus- pension, saying it “follows an investigation by the [Nersa] board into allegations of impropriety against Forlee” and will continue until the com- pletion of a disciplinary hearing.
South African media said that Forlee was being accused of awarding himself an unap- proved salary increase and wrongly approving the registration of a number of rooftop solar projects.
Nersa also announced that Minister Man- tashe had appointed Nhlanhla Gumede as full- time regulator member for electricity, starting April 1.™
GRID
Egypt confirms delay of power link to Saudi Arabia
EGYPT
EGYPTIAN Electricity Transmission Co. (EETC) has confirmed that construction of the interconnection power line to Saudi Arabia has been delayed because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
EETC has now extended the call for tenders, which had been issued at the end of February, with contracts also expected to be signed by the end of May.
EETC said that the tendering process for the 3-GW,$1.6bnprojectcouldbepostponedbyup to 60 days.
Seven companies have so far been pre-quali- fied to take part in the tender. They are Larsen & Toubro, Hyundai, State Grid, NCC, KEC Inter- national, Kalpataru and El-Sewedy.
Talks on the interconnection project first took place in 2010, but there have been several delays because of political disagreements.
Also, the Saudi side has delayed negotiations because of changes to its flagship NEOM pro- ject, which involves building a new city close to the Egyptian border that would be served by the cross-border power link.
In 2014, Egypt and Saudi Arabia resumed negotiations and tendered for cables, lines and transformer stations.
Egypt is expected to finance about 40% of the project, while Saudi Arabia is anticipated to pay 60%.
Egypt is keen to develop the project, as it will provide an export route for the country’s emerg- ing renewables industry.
The government has forecast that the country could have 74 GW of excess capacity by 2035, when its installed capacity could reach 160 GW.
The government has set ambitious targets for renewables to account for 20% of electricity
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