Frankfort forced to dump solar power because of Eskom

Frankfort, a small town in the Free State, will be joining the rest of the country in the dark after its solar-generated energy project was rejected by Eskom.

FRANKFORT DENIED RIGHTS TO GENERATE SOLAR ENEGERY

“Starting today, residents in the small town of Frankfort in the Free State will be forced to sit in the dark while a nearby solar farm, run by a third party, dumps unused solar-generated electricity because Eskom and Mafube municipality wants to keep them locked in into Eskom’s load-shedding schedule,” lamented DA MP Kevin Mileham.

“This unfortunate turn of events came about after the Gauteng High Court did not consider the merits of the case, citing the absence of Mafube Local municipality, who did not join the court challenge, reflecting a turnabout and an apparent lack of interest by the administrator in the welfare of residents who would have benefitted from the resulting augmentation to the power supply,” said Mileham.

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“The DA will shortly be engaging with the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Free State’s COGTA MEC asking for their assistance to compel Mafube local municipality to support the Nersa mediation process that is trying to resolve the issue. Mafube is the distribution licence holder and their support is important if the issue is to be resolved.”

Mileham

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ESKOM ACCUSED OF ABUSE OF POWER

Reflecting on the matter, MP Ghaleb Cachalia said, “What is happening in Frankfort is simply an abuse of Eskom’s monopoly – Eskom is interfering in a small embedded project that is not directly interfering with the utility’s bulk power supply to the municipality
“Instead of partnering with Rural Maintenance to protect Frankfort’s residents from the debilitating effects of Eskom’s debilitating load-shedding schedule, which has recently been ramped up to an indefinite stage 6, Mafube local municipality chose to sit on the sidelines and watch a major investment to end load-shedding go to waste”.

GATEKEEPING EVIDENT IN PARASTATALS

He further said the Frankfort case exposes the red tape that IPPs have to contend with, including Eskom gatekeeping before they can sell power to municipalities.
“With the current punishing schedule of stage 6 load-shedding, it is simply astounding that Eskom is making it difficult for IPPs to reduce the severity of power cuts. Instead of supporting Frankfort’s efforts to mitigate load-shedding and lessen the load on the constrained national grid, we now have a situation where Eskom would rather protect its own monopoly than embrace additional generation capacity,” a disappointed Cachalia said.

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