This follows after Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, last week gazetted amendments to the Electricity Regulations on New Generation Capacity.

It would enable municipalities in good standing to develop their own power generation projects.

The City of Cape Town had gone to court over the issue.

The city’s energy and climate change executive director, Kadri Nassiep, said he was cautiously optimistic at this stage.

“The city is still studying the contents of the gazetted regulations and I think the mayor we’ll probably issue a statement in respect to our response. But less than that it’s the step in the right direction,” Nassiep said.

But Nassiep said there were still some unanswered questions.

“Some of them relate to, for example, the need for a feasibility study. There is no indication at this stage on how long that process can take. And then the big question for me is the notion of financial standing, what actually constitutes a good financial standing for a municipality,” he said.

EWN