Tshwane Power Station Plans Stall

Dear Editor

Since the Democratic Alliance (DA) and our coalition partners were removed from office in the City of Tshwane, plans to reactivate the city’s mothballed power stations have stalled. It would seem that the city’s new ANC-led coalition has other plans.

A year ago the city council resolved to lease Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations to independent power producers as a first step to unlocking their generation capacity to the city’s benefit. The power stations have been in disuse for years – Rooiwal is being kept under maintenance, while Pretoria West’s utility is mainly in its prime industrial location and inlet into the grid.

We planned to make the most of private sector investment and expertise to get the power stations fired up. This would’ve reduced Tshwane’s reliance on Eskom and mitigated the effects of loadshedding.

As I pointed out back then: even if Eskom could end loadshedding, the South African economy would need a bigger supply of electricity to enable economic growth. These power stations gave the city an important competitive advantage in doing so.

After the successful conclusion of our Tshwane Energy Summit last year, the next step was for the city to appoint a transactional adviser to put together a request for proposals.

With such an RFP the city can source the best possible offer in the market instead of relying on a single investor. With the changing energy market, there is even an opportunity for Tshwane to reduce its bulk electricity costs.

We budgeted for the appointment of such a transactional adviser, and the energy task team appointed under my mayorship was instructed to work with the Tshwane Economic Development Agency (TEDA) to get the ball rolling.

But all efforts on the power stations seem to have come to an end when the DA and our coalition partners were voted out of office in September 2024. In the meantime, precious time has been lost.

The brief return of loadshedding in recent weeks should be a wake-up call for metros about the importance of investing in their energy independence.

As the City of Tshwane prepares a draft budget for the 2025/26 financial year, the DA calls on the city not to defund the project to get Tshwane’s power stations fired up again.

The mayor and her senior political partners have been happy to appropriate as their own some of the projects initiated under our leadership, including the Hammanskraal water project. To this list must be added our plans for the power stations.

Regards

Ald Cilliers Brink
DA Tshwane Caucus Leader