President Cyril Ramaphosa is optimistic South Africa will emerge from its energy crisis as he detailed “significant” progress made in the Energy Action Plan a year later.
In his weekly newsletter, the president announced that they would on Monday, release a detailed report outlining the work done to improve the performance of Eskom’s power stations, accelerate the building of new generation capacity and drive regulatory reforms to transform the electricity sector.
With the winter months reaching its tail-end, Ramaphosa said that although load shedding had continued, as was anticipated, they managed to avert a worst case scenario by stabilising the performance of Eskom’s power stations and reducing demand.
“One of the most important contributions to the Energy Action Plan has been the uptake by households and businesses of rooftop solar,” Ramaphosa said.
“It is encouraging to see that more municipalities are allowing customers to feed electricity into the grid when they have surplus electricity. This will provide yet another incentive for businesses large and small to invest in alternative energy sources.”
According to government, Eskom’s generation fleet continued to show sustained improvement.
Unplanned losses have been reduced to less than 16,000 MW in in the last two months, down from more than 18,000 MW previously. Planned maintenance has been reduced during the winter period, with Eskom having undertaken significant maintenance in the months preceding winter.
Looking ahead, Ramaphosa said that damaged units at the Kusile and Medupi power stations were being returned to service on an expedited basis. In combination, these units represent more than 3,000 MW of capacity.
Since the launch of the Energy Action Plan, Ramaphosa said they have worked to add as much power as possible to the grid.
He said Eskom has unlocked close to 400 MW from companies with extra available capacity, and a further 600 MW is currently in the contracting process.
The country also sourced an additional 400 MW from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique.
“We are fast-tracking the procurement of new generation capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage. Later this year, the first three projects from the emergency power programme are expected to connect to the grid.
“Also later this year, around 2,300 MW from the most recent bid windows of the renewable energy independent power producer programme should be in construction.
“To ensure that we never experience power shortages again, we are implementing fundamental reforms to create a competitive electricity market and an independent national grid operator,” Ramaphosa said.
“We have maintained that load shedding will not be resolved overnight, but we are making clear progress towards reducing it and eventually bringing it to an end. Let us maintain this momentum, and let us all play our part, wherever we can, as we lay the groundwork for an energy secure future,” he said.
IOL