The win comes after Eskom filed an urgent appeal for Nersa to review its revenue application for FY2023.
The North Gauteng High Court has ordered the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to process Eskom’s application and to make a revenue decision for the financial year 2023, which begins on 1 April 2022.
Eskom filed the application in October after the energy regulator rejected its initial tariff application for the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2025 that was submitted in June.
In an affidavit filed in support of the application, Eskom CFO Calib Cassim said the tariff has been rejected “in favour of a fanciful tariff determination process that is simply incapable of lawful completion in time for the 15 March 2022 deadline”.
Realising that the new methodology would not be ready in time for the 2022/23 tariff determination, Nersa decided that Eskom’s new application for that year should be done in terms of an interim methodology based on the consultation paper.
Read more: Eskom takes Nersa’s tariff application rejection to court
In a judgement on Friday, the high court confirmed that the old methodology remained valid until replaced by an alternative process. The court also ordered Nersa to publish Eskom’s revenue application on 8 December, with 14 January 2022 being the last day for written stakeholder comments on the application. From 17 January 2022, Nersa will hold public hearings on Eskom’s revenue application, and on 25 February 2022 Nersa will have to make a revenue decision.
