READ: Ramaphosa's full speech on SA's energy crisis measures
| Published date | 25 July 2022 |
| Author | Citizen Reporter |
| Publication title | Citizen, The (South Africa) |
During the past three weeks, severe load shedding has disrupted all of our lives and caused immense damage to our economy.
The daily power cuts we have been experiencing have inconvenienced millions of households and have presented huge challenges for businesses.
After more than a decade without a reliable electricity supply, South Africans are justifiably frustrated and angry.
They are fed up.
We have therefore developed a set of actions to respond to the crisis.
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The crisis that we are facing requires that we should take bold, courageous and decisive action to close the electricity gap.
This is a call for all South Africans to be part of the solution; to contribute in whatever way they can to ending energy scarcity in South Africa.
As government we are announcing a number of interventions to overcome the immediate crisis.
In the past 10 days, I have held extensive discussions with the Eskom executive management, power station managers and former Eskom personnel.
I have also met with labour federations, Business Unity South Africa, the Black Business Council, community representatives and several experts in the energy sector. This morning, I also met political party leaders.
I am grateful for the valuable proposals made by all those we have met.
These meetings have helped to shape our response and ensure that all sections of South African society are involved in solving this problem, as this is a national crisis.
All the people I have spoken to have said this is the time when the country must unite to address this challenge.
The set of additional actions I am announcing this evening:
Firstly, are aimed at improving the performance Eskom's existing fleet of power stations;
Secondly, will accelerate the procurement of new generation capacity;
Thirdly, are intended to massively increase private investment in generation capacity;
Fourthly, are designed to enable businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar; and,
Finally, are directed at fundamentally transforming the electricity sector and positioning it for future sustainability.
Fellow South Africans,
For our response to be effective, we need to understand the problem.
South Africa has installed capacity to produce approximately 46,000 MW of electricity, and at peak times we use about 32,000 MW of electricity.
However, only 60% of this installed capacity is available at any given time due to some units going through planned maintenance and others having unplanned outages.
Many of our power stations were built many years ago.
The average age of Eskom's power stations is 35 years. Generally as power stations get older, their performance deteriorates.
The construction of our newest power stations, Medupi and Kusile, started late and they have experienced several delays and some design flaws.
These challenges are being addressed.
As a result of this, Eskom deferred essential maintenance to keep the lights on, which is causing breakdowns and failures now.
The performance of some of Eskom's power stations have been further worsened by extensive theft, fraud and sabotage.
After years of state capture and mismanagement, a capable and effective management team is working hard to turn the utility around and reverse years of decay.
However, as things stand, we are still faced with an electricity shortage of up to 6,000 MW.
In recent weeks, a combination of factors resulted in 18,000 MW of generation capacity being lost, and forced Eskom to implement stage 6 load shedding.
Eskom has to implement load shedding to prevent the electricity grid from collapsing, and to ensure that we never experience a complete blackout.
The factors that led to the latest load shedding included a number unit breakdowns at some power stations.
We also experienced damage to the transmission line from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique and there were also instances reported of deliberate damage to equipment.
Teams within Eskom have worked hard to bring generation units back online and stabilise the national grid.
As a result of their efforts, the system outlook has improved over the past week.
The agreement reached between Eskom and workers has allowed critical repairs to the...
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