The World Bank has granted a US$1.5bn loan to support structural reforms in South Africa aimed at improving energy security and support the shift to a low carbon economy. In the energy sector, the country is expected to move from a single, state-owned monopoly (Eskom) to a more open and competitive electricity market, where different providers can generate, transmit, and distribute power. The World Bank’s program aims to strengthen the transmission system by helping the new National Transmission Company become financially and operationally independent, open the grid to private investment in transmission lines, attract investments in distributed generation by enabling exporting households’ generated surpluses back into the grid, and initiate improvements in the performance of municipal electricity distribution by scaling up smart metering.
The reforms intends at bringing in 3,500 MW of new renewable capacity by March 2027. Private investment in transmission could add 200 km of new lines, while a new municipal grant system aims to deploy 50,000 smart meters to improve revenue collection and enable consumers to feed excess power back into the grid.
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