- Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, says the power grid is expected to be strengthened with generating units expected back by the end of August.
- He was speaking during a media briefing in Pretoria on Monday morning.
“We are expecting Medupi Unit 4 to give us 800MW [megawatts]and to fire up Kusile Unit 6, which is another 800MW. We are hoping to get an extension of life of Koeberg Unit 2… We are not complacent. We are doing everything by the book and we are still optimistic about getting that extension of life, and it will give us an additional 980MW.
“We do expect that by the end of August this year, just from the Eskom fleet, we should be getting an additional 2 500MW,” he said.
“I really want to caution that load shedding is not behind us. In the next three weeks or so Eskom will be sharing what the summer outlook is. We are still buoyant about the performance of these generation plants. Having said that, we need to caution against any early declaration to decree load shedding as behind us. We do everything possible to resolve this question but the numbers do indicate that we are within touching distance,” Ramokgopa said.
“Tutuka has experienced a significant amount of challenges over a period of time… but we are seeing results now. Just this period from March to August, the unplanned capacity loss factor [UCLF] has reduced by 29%. That’s significant from where Tutuka started; they’ve moved from 2 411MW to 949MW. At Kendal, there were major issues with regard to exceeding the emissions standards, so there [were]a number of interventions that had to be made. Today… we were able to reduce the [UCLF] from 2 500MW out and now we’re sitting at about 919MW. We have seen exceptional results at Kriel, with the reduction in the UCLF having gone down 53% from 1 400MW to about 508MW,” the Minister said.
Leadership change
He explained that change in leadership at the helm has changed the trajectory of those stations.
“The people issues do matter and the Eskom leadership has taken that into account. The fact that you place the most seasoned, loyal and patriotic individuals to be at the helm of those power stations has given us the kind of results that are required,” Ramokgopa said.
Nuclear procurement
Ramokgopa also commented on South Africa’s nuclear ambitions and Koeberg unit 2 commissioning. He said they are still being debated internally and emphasised that he wants to ensure the process is not “soiled” by a lack of transparency.“
We are still optimistic of getting that extension of life for 20 years of Koberg unit number two, which will give us an additional 980 megawatts. So the point I’m making is that we do expect that by the end of August this year, just from the Eskom fleet, we should be getting an additional 2,500 megawatts,” said Ramokgopa
Municipal debt and load reduction
With municipal debt sitting at R78 million and over R300 million owed to municipalties, the minister said that government is looking at ways of solving this crisis keeping in mind the high cost of electricity plus access for the poor. The implementation of load reduction is also playing role in the process.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
