Nersa is an Independent Regulator. As such Nersa makes the rules. As per the photo of part of a document in the header of this article, Nersa has already stated that Eskom is out of line, and Nersa has advised Eskom what needs to happen in terms of policy in the Energy White Paper of 1998 and the Renewable Energy White Paper of 2003, which advocated competition in the electricity sector. Not only that but we know that Eskom are currently operating outside their licence conditions, and they aren't meeting the requirements of the EIA's that they entered into with their public.
And therefore if Nersa are not enforcing Eskom's license conditions, then Nersa cannot enforce anyone else's license or registration.
Government represents the will of the people. This people will this government to act on this peoples behalf. If this cannot be done, then Nersa is not independent, but is rather a rubber stamping machine, and in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness, Nersa should immediately be disbanded. The same would then go for every other Public Protector type institution, and the Public will have no other recourse but to set up Prosecution Associations to defend their (the public's) interests.
For more than 10 years I have been writing letters to so many parts of government; I've spoken personally to many politicians and political leaders; I've spoken and had meetings at conferences; I've had letters and articles published; I've written commentary about Acts and Policy and Proposals; I've been to International Conferences and Spoken to International Energy Experts; and I've made suggestions as to how South Africa's problems can be solved. And I've been told that government will change the tariffs to solve the problems. And government will penalize private people who install infrastructure, because that infrastructure competes with government infrastructure. My wife constantly complains about the amount of money that we spend on infrastructure, and that we therefore haven't had a holiday for over three years. But in an insecure environment, one must protect oneself. This includes private police services and neighbourhood watches, private schools, private transport, private food supply, private water, private electricity.
Unfortunately government is getting advice from companies that have their own interests at heart, and perhaps the interests of the countries where they have their headquarters, and for 536 years these companies have hoodwinked the South African government's into believing their advice. This must end.
Nersa's mandate is to listen to all sides of the Energy equation and to Regulate, i.e. make regular (mundane) what happens in our most beautiful country.
South African citizens need cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality electricity; cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality water; cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality food; cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality air.
It is every citizen's right to be heard; it is every citizen's right to be able to compete with Eskom (and the other utilities) and to therefore be able to supply this country with the electricity, water, food and air that this country needs.
The competition Act wills competition. The Constitution protects peoples rights and gives the people access to level playing fields and a clean and healthy environment.
Over the past 20 years since I started on my mission to provide a safe haven for an unemployed population in a world without work, a world that is becoming known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and even the Fifth Industrial Revolution, I have met numerous citizen scientists and DIY'ers, who know how to make cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality electricity, cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality water, cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality food, cheap and abundant and clean and organic and quality air, and it is now time for us to turn toward them to help us solve the crises that the current experts have gotten us into.
Unfortunately as Edison and Tesla and Einstein and many others have written about, experts are expert at protecting their turf, and their dogma. They have studied for decades to be expert at what they do. And in order to protect their jobs they need to protect their industries. Well the world is revolving, turning towards a new dawn, where millions of electrical and water and food micro-grids make up a much large whole, where the end user is a prosumer, responsible and understanding of xe's needs and understanding the complexity of xe's environment and able to contribute and maintain xe's environment. And if you understand history, then you know that in the late 19th Century, this was how the grid was, but that there wan't a regulator, ensuring competition, and so, instead, by 1904 1% of American companies controlled 45% of the manufactured products. And then these companies invented the term "natural monopolies" (to protect themselves and their long term investments, and they even created a term "stranded assets" which means that their customers pay them even if the customers have found better goods), which as we have come to see created the richest and most powerful people the world has ever known (Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Insull, etc), but which hasn't lasted, and most of these big industries are now failing, because monopolies are not natural. Just consider carrots. There are 100 varieties of carrot. Available for every condition, sun, rain, humidity, every climate, but we try to produce orange ones and create a "natural monopoly" and then we have crop failures.
It is now time to act, and Nersa acts in terms of the Electricity Regulation Act, No 4 of 2006. It is time to help Nersa rise to the occasion and achieve Chapter II, point 4(a)(iv) "issue rules designed to implement national government electricity policy". South Africa has incredible policy, as Nersa is well aware.
Our government has dithered about the new Integrated Energy Plan (IEP), and the new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), and it really isn't surprising, because government is only looking at part of the picture.
When one sees the whole picture, one can Act.
Let's Act together.
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