Cabinet has approved the building of a third coal-fired power station by Eskom essentially freeing the parastatal to take its infrastructure investment programme beyond the two coal-fired power stations currently being built.

Trade and Industry minister Rob Davies says, however, there is no time-line, schedules or costs approved for the project as of yet. He said the building of the new power station would probably start once Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile projects are complete in 2018, adding a combined 9 600MW to the national grid. Eskom has been struggling to meet electricity demand since rolling blackouts hit South Africa in 2008, costing the economy billions of rand in lost production and economic growth.

Davies says the third power station was part of the government’s overall strategy to remove energy constraints.

“We had to take a clear decision of the building of the third coal-fired power station after Medupi and Kusile,” he explains.

As the debate on introducing a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions starts to hot up Eskom says any carbon taxes generated will have to be passed on to the consumer.

This is despite a commitment by South Africa at the COP17 conference to reduce carbon emissions by 34% by 2020, and discussions in parliament recently on the introduction in 2015 of a carbon tax in a bid to reduce emissions.

The policy paper on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions indicates a cost of R120 per ton of emissions, but every sector will be exempt from paying for the first 60%.