Question NW3390 to the Minister of Public Enterprises

Reply:

According to the Information Received From Eskom

Loadshedding is used as a last resort when there is inadequate capacity available to supply the demand. This is to protect the system from a total blackout which will be costly to the country.

The main reasons for the inability to meet demand are a national capacity shortage of between 4 000 and 6 000 MW and the availability of Eskom’s Generation fleet, which is below aspiration.

In order to address the availability of the Generation fleet, Eskom is focusing on operational recovery and capacity increase which include:

• Bringing the remaining two (units) at Kusile Power Station online and expediting the return of Medupi Unit 4;
• Implementing reliability maintenance through focus on quality, recruitment of experienced staff, and the utilisation of original equipment manufacturers;
• Addressing Eskom debt to enable required investments;
• Use of climate funding to invest in repurposing and repowering of stations to be shut down;
• Co-ordinated efforts with law enforcement to address sabotage, theft, and fraud at the power stations;
• Focus on six (6) priority stations (Duvha, Kendal, Kusile, Majuba, Matla and Tututka) where the maximum benefit can be achieved by improved performance; and
• Implementation of Presidential Energy Action Plan to address electricity crisis in the country.

The root causes of the current performance were due to late decision to allow Eskom to build new capacity and many years of sub-prudent and efficient cost-reflective tariffs which led to over a decade of “running the stations very hard” with less-than-ideal reliability maintenance and mid-life refurbishments. Until both the inadequate capacity and availability of the Generation fleet are addressed, the risk of loadshedding will remain high.