Tshwane Municipality wishes to lease two of its inactive power plants to independent electricity providers.
The city council has authorised the decision for the capital city to initiate a public involvement process for the operation of both the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations over 40-year leases.
For the past decade, the two power plants have been under long-term maintenance care.
As a result, the stations generate no electricity for the grid.
Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink stated that the municipality could not afford to close them permanently and did not have the funds to reopen them.
“You can start one of the turbines and see what you can do with it, but that’s not enough.” You’re going to need capital investment here, and instead of just waiting for the bureaucracy to respond, we want to open up the issue as widely as possible and say to the market, “This is what we have to do with energy independence in this country.”