- Eskom group CEO, André de Ruyter, highlighted the fact that South Africa has brought no new generation capacity on line in the last eight years and it has come to haunt the country.
- De Ruyter was speaking at press briefing held yesterday on the system challenges after the state owned utility implemented stage 4 load-shedding. Read more
- Also speaking at the briefing, Eskom’s head of transmission, Segomoco Scheppers, said the power utility expects 101 days of load-shedding during the winter under an extreme case scenario.
- Eskom currently has around half of its generation capacity out of service. Read more
- Eskom is also carrying an unsustainable debt burden of just under R400 billion.
- The utility is effectively servicing its debt with debt. Read more
“Over the past eight years there hasn’t been new generation capacity. That eight-year delay has caused a significant shortfall in new capacity being added to the grid. Eskom, under previous management, played a role in this by refusing to sign IPPs on the grid. And that decision has come to haunt us,” said De Ruyter.
De Ruyter added that Eskom wants to seek bids from small/independent power generators to sell their surplus electricity into the national grid under contracts of at least three years but to do this Eskom requires permission from the government to relax procurement rules under the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act.
De Ruyter also wants to expedite Eskom’s process of procuring goods from original equipment manufacturers to continuously maintain the utility’s power stations.
“We are asking for an exemption to procure equipment and spare parts from OEMs instead of having to go through non-value intermediaries. We believe that this will offer us cost savings and efficiency gains. It would also give us greater latitude to expand certain contracts we have instead of going through long procurement processes,” he said.
Also speaking at the briefing, Eskom’s head of transmission, Segomoco Scheppers, said the power utility expects between 37 and 101 days of load-shedding during the winter season depending on how much generation capacity Eskom will lose during winter.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
