(Bloomberg) --

Mining companies in South Africa are considering spending as much as 40 billion rand ($2.7 billion) to construct 2,000 megawatts of power generation capacity, said Roger Baxter, chief executive officer of Minerals Council South Africa.

Mining companies have been pushing to develop their own power plants because of persistent power cuts imposed by state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. Those plans have been given impetus by this year’s decision by the government to allow the construction of plants of up to 100 megawatts in capacity without generation licenses.

Baxter was speaking at a webinar convened by the Presidential Climate Change Coordinating Commission on Thursday.

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