Eskom’s generating capacity is threatened to remain unstable as 12 power units could shut down quickly, resulting in a shortfall of 4 956 megawatts.
“They can travel at any time,” Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter told parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday. “Because of the unreliability we are experiencing in the coal fleet, there is a high probability that the load will continue and that the stage could change very quickly because of the potential loss of more generating capacity.”
Eskom’s board and executives appeared before Scopa – amid ongoing blackouts and uproar over recently approved electricity tariff increases – to tell legislators that the power utility expects a vacuum load loss of 1 400 megawatts for the Matimba power station over the next three years. day.
While the parliamentary hearing was underway, 19 interest groups filed a court challenge in the Pretoria high court to force the state to reduce the burden crisis.
Scopa chairman Mkhuleko Hlengwa asked Eskom to provide a “roadmap” for when the blackout will end, pointing out that the committee cannot hold state entities accountable without a timeline.
De Ruyter is not aware of this, because it is not only Eskom that can guarantee a sustainable supply of electricity. He also highlighted corruption in Eskom and the failure of law enforcement agencies to deal with it.
“Corruption is unfortunately a gift that cannot be stopped and it still exists today,” said De Ruyter, adding that corruption had reached the point when Eskom implemented control measures to monitor the coal load, the company that oversees the monitoring. offered a bribe to gain access to the control system.
“Eskom advocated for a long time to increase law enforcement, increase intelligence gathering and increase assistance,” he said. De Ruyter was pushed to the point when he approached private donors to carry out intelligence operations to gather information about corruption.
In his presentation, De Ruyter named the six largest power plants that contributed to load shedding – Tutuka, Duhva, Majuba, Kusile, Matla and Kendal. Tutuka, in Mpumalanga, which he says is “characterized by significant criminality”, has energy availability between 15% and 17%.
“It is disappointingly low for a station that is one of the newest of the fleet,” said the Eskom boss out.
Eskom officials reiterated the company’s turnaround plan to recover its energy availability factor from the current estimate of 58% to 70% by the end of March 2025. This will see Eskom add approximately 6 000 megawatts to the grid over a two-year period. The aim is to add 1,862 megawatts by the end of March this year.
In the face of Scopa’s criticism of Eskom’s failure to secure sufficient electricity supply, the utility’s chairman, Mpho Makwana, said it was “gradually improving the situation”.