Pretoria’s plan to stop wasting R300 million a year on unused power stations
The City of Tshwane spends approximately R300 million annually maintaining the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations, which haven’t produced energy for over a decade.
The municipality now wants to lease the two power stations to independent power producers (IPPs), and the public participation process for the plan is currently underway.
The City of Tshwane released a statement encouraging residents and interested stakeholders to take part in the public participation process.
“A positive outcome of the public participation process and the subsequent Council endorsement will unlock much-needed electricity-generating capacity at both power stations in order to benefit our communities,” said Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink.
“Rooiwal Power Station has been dormant for almost a decade, and using it again will reduce the burden of load shedding on our communities.”
Brink emphasised that the process will not favour any specific power provider and will be managed transparently, competitively, and fairly.
Following the public participation process, the plan will go back to the council, where it will decide whether the city may issue a request for proposals (RFP).
“Depending on the outcome of that public participation, we will take it back to council at the end of October, when we will then get an indication on whether council will allow us to continue with the issuing of an RFP,” said Sello Mphaga, Tshwane Municipality divisional head of sustainability.
Mphaga added that, at the latest, the city hopes “to get to contracts” by the end of the current financial year — or June 2024.
The City of Tshwane first revealed that it wants to lease the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power station to IPPs on a 40-year contract on 18 September, following a council approval process that began on 12 September 2023.
Cilliers Brink, Mayor of the City of Tshwane.
Brink said the metro can’t afford to permanently shut down the power stations, nor does it have the funding necessary to revive them.
“You can fire up one of the turbines, you can see what you can do with it but that’s not adequate,” Eyewitness News quoted Brink as saying.
“You’re going to have to have capital investment here, and instead of just waiting for the bureaucracy to deliver some sort of answer, what we want to do is we want to break open the issue as widely as possible and say to the market because that’s what we have to do with energy independence in this country.”
According to a News24 report, around R300 million is spent each year on staff salaries and maintenance at the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations, despite them having added no power to the grid since 2012.
Rooiwal power station staff told News24 they were frustrated working at a non-operational power station.
“We have been doing nothing for ten years. We want to leave here and work at other depots,” one staff member said.
“We don’t earn salaries. They are just given to us.”
Another said staff are still forced to clock in for work at the power station before they hang around doing nothing until it’s time to knock off.
Lardo Stander, chief economist at the City of Tshwane, said the two power stations have cost the metro more than R1 billion in direct costs over the past decade.
Moreover, he said the loss in revenue has also potentially run into the billions.
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