Independent power producers (IPPs) were "absolutely needed" in South Africa's energy future, Eskom senior manager for regulatory affairs Mohamed Adam said on Friday.

Responding to criticism that Eskom was trying to keep IPPs out of the market, Adam said that the country needed demand-side management (DSM), the proposed power conservation programme and IPPs in order to help solve its energy problems.

He added that if the new base-load coal-fired Kusile power station was delayed any further, 2014 would be "very tight", even with IPPs and DSM.

Meanwhile, with regard to the "sunset deals" Eskom had entered into with some large industrial customers in the past, Adam noted that this information has never been hidden and was in the public domain.

He explained that these deals had been entered into many years ago when Eskom had had a surplus of electricity generation capacity.

The power utility had also disclosed information on these deals to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, he said.

He added that there were also only a few industrial customers with which it had entered into these deals and not with all of its 138 largest industrial customers, as reported in the media.

He noted that the remainder of the largest customers were still billed according to the standard megaflex tariffs.

Meanwhile, Adam said that the country and Eskom had to deal with its energy solutions holistically and not one-dimensionally, otherwise it would never find solutions. The challenges of the country had to be integrated in order for the country to move forward.

South Africa would face a tight electricity supply situation between 2011 and 2014 and then again from 2018 to 2024, stated Adam.