South Africa plans to draft a new legislation to ease regulations for private power generation, both from enterprises and households. Many energy-intensive industrial groups such as mining companies are requesting a deregulation of approval procedures to develop their own power capacities, to ensure a reliable power supply in a context of rolling load-shedding episodes. According to the Mineral Councils - South Africa’s mining industry body - mining companies could develop 500 MW to 1,500 MW of self-generation capacity over the next few years once the sector is deregulated.
According to the Integrated Resource Plan until 2030, published in October 2030, there is a short-term supply gap of approximately 2 GW. This figure has recently been updated by South African power utility Eskom to about 3 GW. In December 2019, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) launched a Risk Mitigation Power Purchase Programme, with the objective to procure between 2-3 GW of power generation capacity that can be connected to the grid in the shortest time at the least possible cost.