READER LETTER | Save SA from high energy tariffs and IPP contracts

How are austerity measures applied in our stagnant economy? Cape Peninsula University of Technology recently established the SA Renewable Technology Centre. Good development.

It is to collaborate with Komati power station in retraining and repowering its workforce in renewable energy. Emalahleni (formerly Witbank) in Mpumalanga is the coal hub of SA. Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) has campuses around the coal-fired power stations about to be decommissioned and repurposed. Cape Peninsula is a tax-funded institution on the southern tip of SA, 1,000s of kilometres away.

Let TUT or the Johannesburg University of Technology establish a main centre and work with satellite centres at the repurposed power plants. Is it because these institutions don't have research units or are they of lower standards?

The laggard Eskom should have long thought strategically and diversified to renewable power plants, thereby saving taxpayers from the private sector euphemised as independent power suppliers (IPPs) and also maintained job security. There’s an urgent need to kick-start this programme and save SA from long contracts with IPPs and high energy tariffs.

Thami Zwane, Edenvale