Page 6 - AfrElec Week 05 2023
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AfrElec POLICY AfrElec
South Africa: Cape Town gets green
light to buy back power from IPPs
SOUTH AFRICA CAPE Town said on Tuesday (January 24) that
the South African National Treasury had given it
the go-ahead to buy power back from independ-
ent power producers (IPPs).
The metropolitan municipality is gearing up
to become the first in the country to be shielded
from escalating power outages, locally known as
load shedding.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed
the Treasury’s decision to exempt the city from
competitive bidding or tendering to buy power
from homes and businesses, Eyewitness News
(EWN) reports.
“We have an exemption, and that means that
we can start to put in place a system in which
people with solar panels on their roof can feed
power back to the city and be paid in cash for that
power,” he said.
As Cape Town forges ahead with an IPP
tender, it hopes this latest move will protect
the city from four stages of power cuts in the According to the mayor, payments to com-
future, writes EWN. Hill-Lewis encouraged mercial customers would be possible before June
residents and businesses to use approved sys- and before the end of the year for any Capetonian
tems such as solar in order to sell power to the who was legally allowed to sell their excess elec-
grid. tricity and feed it back into the local grid.
Kenya Power seeks up to 78%
hike in electricity prices
KENYA ELECTRICITY prices in Kenya could rise by up
to 78% as of April if the energy sector regulator
approves new tariffs proposed by Nairobi-listed
utility Kenya Power (KPLC), Business Daily
reports.
KPLC owns and operates most of the elec-
tricity transmission and distribution system in
the East African country. It has been lobbying
the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Author-
ity (EPRA) to approve the first upward review of
power prices since 2018, in part by scrapping a affordable to those at the bottom of the economic
monthly subsidy cushioning poor households. pyramid and our manufacturers,” Ruto said in
The state-owned utility says it needs addi- early January.
tional revenue to upgrade its transmission net- KPLC has said it hopes to increase the cost of
work. President William Ruto, however, has said a unit of power for the usage of less than 30kWh
his government is working towards lowering per month to KES28.01 ($0.23) a unit, up 35%
electricity tariffs and will prioritize low-income from the current KES20.70 ($0.173).
earners and manufacturers in the tariff review The utility’s revenue climbed 21% to KES-
process. 83.6bn ($734mn) in the six months through
“In three months, we will have public con- December, taking profit to KES3.8bn up from
sultation to ensure that we have tariffs that are KES138mn a year earlier.
P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 01•February•2023
