News that the 25 solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind projects selected late last year as preferred bids would not achieve financial close by the end of April as advertised came as no surprise. There... 

The politics surrounding both Eskom and South Africa’s now protracted electricity crisis has always been problematic. It was politics that prevented the implementation of the necessary market... 

Dear valued reader, Those of you who receive the physical Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine will no doubt have noticed already that we have made a fairly dramatic change to our paper. 

There will be much interest in the coming days as to whether all 25 of the wind and solar photovoltaic projects named as preferred bids in October are able to reach financial close. The projects... 

South Africans have rightfully paid detailed attention to the state of the country’s generation assets over the past decade and a bit as load-shedding has progressively intensified, precipitated by... 

Last week I wrote that South African policymakers should not misread the energy market signals that have arisen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A note of caution written in light of indications... 

Policymakers should not misread the admittedly confusing energy market signals that have arisen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The confusion has been driven largely by the scramble under way... 

There is significant concern, and rightfully so, about the outlook for fuel prices and security of supply following Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in late February. No country is immune from... 

The most recent bout of load-shedding not only reconfirmed South Africa’s debilitating overexposure to coal, but also this country’s growing vulnerability to diesel price spikes and supply... 

The just transition was always going to be a highly contested concept and the battle, it appears, is only but beginning. South Africa has already made remarkable progress in adding some flesh to... 

Having some breathing space as a result of a R182-billion tax windfall is one thing, using it wisely is quite another. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s maiden Budget has provided the scaffolding... 

To the outside observer, the recent debate on the importance of the private sector in creating employment must have come across as almost surreal given South Africa’s economic predicament and the... 

Minerals Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe is correct about the need to update the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). Even on the very day, October 18, 2019, when the document was finally... 

Government and its energy policymakers in particular seem oblivious to the predicament South Africa is in when it comes to the electricity supply industry. True, few, if any, Ministers or officials... 

It was obvious for all those who took the time to listen in to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) most recent hearings into Eskom’s allowable revenue application that the gap... 

South Africa is not immune to pandemics and 2022 has, thus far, proved something of a super-spreader event for the virus of populism. From obnoxious rhetoric against the Constitution by a person... 

A year can feel extremely long when events run away from you, but awfully short if one is trying to implement a turnaround. 2021 is a case in point. 

By the time you read this, Justice Jody Kollapen would have delivered his judgment in the latest – and arguably the most worrying – legal tussle between Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of... 

There was justifiable amazement last week, when several councils, including three large Gauteng metropolitan councils, were put out of the reach of the African National Congress (ANC). Words such... 

South Africans have become quite accustomed to government never failing to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And nowhere has this been more apparent than in the electricity milieu. After... 

South Africans are approaching the prospect of ongoing load-shedding with a mixture of anger and resignation. The anger manifests mainly in the form of predictable calls for the resignation of the... 

South Africa and Eskom can be rightfully pleased with the political declaration – signed with France, Germany, the UK, the US and the European Union – opening the way for an initial $8.5-billion to... 

There is much scepticism about the ability of Eskom to deploy the grid capacity needed to unlock the 30 GW of new, mostly renewable, generation capacity that has to be introduced into the network... 

In the run-up to the municipal elections, various media outlets have carried excellent, albeit highly distressing, reports detailing the collapse of basic services in towns and townships across the... 

South Africa has experienced yet another terrible year of electricity supply disruption. Even before the most recent bout of power cuts in October, the Council for Scientific and Industrial... 

Recent developments in Europe and Asia – which have seen oil, gas, coal and electricity prices surge, as well as supply disruptions – have raised questions globally about the energy transition, its... 

The Just Transition Transaction (JTT) proposal released by Meridian Economics last month to coincide with a visit of climate envoys from Europe, the US and the UK may be both massively ambitious... 

The importance of Cabinet’s approval of a revised and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) carbon mitigation target range for 2030 cannot be overstated. South Africa’s new 2030... 

Recent signs of America’s weakening global economic, cultural, and military dominance notwithstanding, the country continues to play a superpower-sized role in shaping the international narrative,... 

Mining personality Bernard Swanepoel’s disarming sense of humour enables him to speak many a true word in jest without triggering offence. But he wasn’t joking when, in opening a recent webinar on... 

While it’s been obvious for years, Eskom’s recent results once again showed that, absent a debt solution, the utility has no real pathway to financial sustainability. Yes, there are signs of... 

The recent rebasing and benchmarking exercise undertaken by Statistics South Africa as part of a routine five-yearly review made for some relatively happy reading, especially given the constant...