ActionSA submits objections to IRP 2023, provides nine-point plan to end load shedding
6 March 2024
ActionSA has, today, submitted our objections to the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) – government’s energy plan tabled in 2023 – during a picket outside the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) Headquarters in Pretoria. We reject the IRP in its current form, as it fails to address South Africa’s devastating energy crisis with any sense of urgency, condemning us to load shedding until at least 2030.
Load shedding, a euphemistic term for rolling blackouts, remains one of the biggest self-made disasters by the ruling party as it destroys our economy and kills thousands of jobs every year. Furthermore, the notion that load shedding has improved is complete nonsense. In 2023, South Africans experienced 332 days of rolling blackout, with a mere 33 days without rolling black outs in an entire year. This is the worst load shedding we have ever experienced, despite the government burning R24.3 billion worth of diesel in a desperate attempt to keep higher stages of load shedding at bay.
During the same period, however, the private sector and citizens added just short of 3,000 MW of solar power to the South African grid – equivalent to three stages less of load shedding. The bottom line is that 17 years since load shedding was first introduced in 2007, the ruling party has failed to make the investments necessary to solve the problem, leaving the private sector and citizens to take action and to fix the problem.
This is why ActionSA’s nine-point plan to end load shedding in South Africa once and for all is focussed on unleashing the potential of Independent Power Producers in a competitive energy market, while taking measures to fix a broken Eskom.