Minister Gwede Mantashe publishes licensing exemption and regulation notice for public comment

The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe (MP) has published the Licensing Exemption and Regulation Notice under section 36(4) of the Electricity Regulation Act (2006), for public comment in Government Gazette No. 46845 3 of 02 September 2022.

The Licensing Exemption and Regulation Notice seeks to give effect to the various measures to address South Africa’s electricity challenges as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2022. It outlines a set of electricity generation activities that are exempt from licensing, and those that in addition to being exempt from licensing must also comply with the Code (distribution code, transmission code, or any code approved by the Regulator) and must be registered with the Regulator. 

Activities exempt from licensing include:

• the operation of a generation facility with or without battery storage for the sole purpose of providing standby or back-up electricity in the event of electricity supply interruption for a duration of no longer than the electricity supply interruption itself; 
• the operation of any generation facility with or without battery storage irrespective of capacity (MW) and the Facility does not have a point of connection; 
• the operation of a facility with a capacity of no more than 100 kilowatts which complies with the code and has a Point of Connection, the distributor has prescribed the conditions relating to the continued use of the Point of Connection, and the Regulator has prescribed the manner in which the Distributor shall keep a register of each facility. 

Some of the activities exempt from licensing but must comply with the Code (distribution code, transmission code, or any code approved by the Regulator) and must be registered with the Regulator, include the operation of any generation facility with or without energy storage, of unrestricted capacity, with a Point of Connection on the transmission or distribution power system and the trading of electricity by a reseller in circumstances respectively specified in sections 3.1 and 3.5 of the proposed Schedule 2 of the Electricity Exemption and Regulation Act. 

Interested persons and organisations are invited to submit, within 30 days, written comments on the proposed Licensing Exemption and Regulation Notice to the Director General of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy as per the details below:
By Post to: Private Bag X96, Pretoria, 0001
By Hand delivery to: 
71 Travenna Campus, Cnr Meintjies and Francis Baard Streets, Sunnyside, 
Pretoria
Email: Donald.Ndobe@dmre.gov.za