South Africa’s Eskom Holdings is looking for a manager to lead its clean energy projects even as the utility extends the use of coal plants to mitigate nationwide electricity shortages.
The group executive will be “responsible for leading and overseeing the renewable energy initiatives within Eskom” as well as driving its Just Energy Transition Strategy to move away from coal, the company said in an advertisement in the Johannesburg-based Business Day newspaper. The person will act as the primary liaison for such projects and oversee their planning.
The utility plans to keep some coal units running beyond their scheduled decommissioning date in order to stave off record power cuts that have curbed economic growth. The conditions of the utility’s debt relief set last year also restricts how it spends capital expenditure. It’s also separating into generation, transmission and distribution divisions.
Still, Eskom is in talks with National Treasury about funding a 75-megawatt solar farm near the Lethabo coal-fired power plant, the company said in April.