Eskom has won the court battle against the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). The embattled power utility fought against the Energy Regulator to be granted another tariff increase.
Eskom aimed to use an increase in tariffs to recover R219-billion in revenue from its consumers. However, the increase granted by Nersa means that the public enterprise will only be able to recover R190-billion.
It has 60 days to formally apply to the regulator to have the tariffs officially increased.
Many analysts were shocked when Eskom first announced it would be taking Nersa to court to fight for the approval of a tariff increase, with many calling it “unprecedented”. Nersa initially argued that Eskom is not maintaining itself as it should, and that the rampant mismanagement within the entity itself is to blame for its dysregulation.
The court battle stretches back to 2019, when Eskom initially requested a 18.91% increase in tariffs, but was only granted a hike of 5.23% by the Energy Regulator.
The percentage of the hike has not yet been determined, as the public entity is yet to formally apply for it. Nersa uses a methodology that calculates Eskom’s costs, asset depreciation and return on capital to determine how much more consumers will pay for power.
Eskom also announced that it would implement Stage 4 load shedding until 11pm on the evening of Tuesday, March 10, then shift over to Stage 2 during the peak of load shedding on the evening of Wednesday, March 11.
#POWERALERT 3
Date: 10 March 2020Stage 4 loadshedding will continue until 23:00, drop to Stage 2 until 09:00, and back to Stage 4 @SABCNewsOnline @SABCRadio @IOL @ewnupdates @eNCA @TimesLIVE @News24 @Fin24 @Moneyweb @TheSAnews pic.twitter.com/shZAP1HwT9
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) March 10, 2020
“From 9pm on Wednesday morning, Stage 4 will resume due to a shortage of generation capacity resulting from unplanned breakdowns, including Koeberg Unit 1,” it said in a statement.
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Picture: Pixabay