National Energy Regulator

Municipalities across SA will now face a 15.63% tariff increase from Eskom, approved by Nersa. Mayor Herman Mashaba on Tuesday issued a statement in which he claims the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has rewarded corruption at Eskom with a 15.63% increase in tariffs.

“The City has noted the disappointing correspondence from Nersa, indicating that municipalities across South Africa will now face a 15.63% tariff increase from Eskom following continued tariff negotiations between Eskom and the energy regulator,” said Mashaba.

“This is after Nersa had initially granted Eskom a hike of 9.41%, 8.1% and 5.2% for the next three financial years, below Eskom’s application for a 17.1 % hike for 2019/20, 15.4% for 2020/21 and 15.5% for 2021/22.”

Mashaba said the Nersa decision means that the City of Johannesburg, like many other municipalities, “will be forced” to increase tariffs on electricity.

“Despite the City P
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While everybody was in the dark, literally and figuratively, we now know more about why load shedding is worse than ever and might still get worse too.

The chaotic and dramatic escalation that went from Stage 2 to 3 and then Stage 4 on Saturday, is the loss of imports of 1 100 megawatts (MW) that we got from Mozambique. Or so they say….

The extensive damage that cyclone Idai caused also damaged transmission lines that carry power from Cahora Bassa to South Africa.

According to Eskom, they have to maintain an operating reserve of 2 000MW at all times, hence the need from Saturday to curtail load through load shedding.

The current underlying problem in Eskom’s generating unit, though, is worse than simply what happened in Mozambique on Saturday. On Friday, it announced that load shedding would continue until Sunday.

Along with the announcement on Friday came the ‘forecast’ that Stage 2 load sheddin
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