Question NW2510 to the Minister of Public Enterprises

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20 November 2020 - NW2510

Profile picture: Maotwe, Ms OMC

Maotwe, Ms OMC to ask the Minister of Public Enterprises

Whether, with reference to the reply by the Deputy President to oral question 15 in the National Assembly on 22 October 2020, wherein he indicated that there will be no load shedding in the Republic over the next 18 months, although not guaranteed, he is in a position to confirm that indeed there will be no load shedding in the Republic; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?

Reply:

According to the information received from Eskom

Eskom recognizes the negative impact that load shedding has on the lives of the people and the economy of South Africa. Eskom endeavours not to load shed and does so only as a last resort to ensure the security of the electricity network. However, Eskom’s generating fleet is ageing, at around 39 years on average, and it is both unreliable and unpredictable. As Eskom has often stated, until all the required reliability maintenance has been executed, all the new build units come on line and the DMRE emergency generation comes on line, the system remains constrained and the risk of load shedding remains high in the foreseeable future.

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