In a briefing to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the National Energy Crisis Committee warned that there are no shortcuts to solving South Africa’s crippling electricity crisis.
The committee, made up of seven Cabinet ministers, said there was no short-term fix for the high-profile power outages, which have become a political crisis for Ramaphosa.
blackout
Eskom downgraded power outages from stage 6 to stages 4 and 5 on Monday as heads of state try to deal with the spiraling disaster. This comes after he canceled a trip to the Davos World Economic Forum amid protests against power cuts.
Also read: South Africa on fire: Protests flare up across the country on Monday
On Sunday night, Ramaphosa met with political parties and on Monday he met with labor and business representatives.
Rolling blackouts will continue because Eskom cannot stop its maintenance plan, the committee told Ramaphosa. “When Eskom runs its maintenance program – as it must do to reduce future breakdowns – more units need to go offline, which reduces the amount of electricity available. The complexity of this challenge means we will continue to experience load shedding in the short term.
The committee will monitor the focus on six underperforming Eskom power stations to stop the falling domino units, which plunged the country into chaos through December and the new year.
The summary did not name the power plants, but likely included Medupi and Kusile – two new buildings under siege – Kendal, Tutuka and Majuba.
Annual rate increase
The political temperature was shot through the roof last week when the electricity regulator, Nersa, awarded Eskom an annual tariff increase of 18.65%. However, the final figures for people and businesses still need to be set.
“We have established a team of independent experts to work closely with Eskom to diagnose problems in underperforming power plants and take action to improve plant performance,” the brief said.
If the Kusile 5 unit and others in Medupi, Kusile and Koeberg are restored, then, “as these measures are applied, the electricity supply will improve”. (This can take all year.)
“One of the main challenges is the web of bureaucracy that makes it difficult to respond to crises in an agile way,” the brief said.
“The National Energy Crisis Committee is working to create emergency legislation that can be presented in parliament so that energy projects can be implemented more quickly and enable coordinated and decisive action.”
NOW Read: Nersa approves 18.65% increase in electricity tariffs for Eskom
This article first appeared on Daily Maverick and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.