Eskom says it has managed to minimise load shedding over the past two weeks due to lower plant breakdowns.
Eskom generation executive Eric Shunmagum said a month ago the breakdowns at the entity’s electricity generation division were between 18,500MW and 19,000MW. .
“[Recently] the breakdown performance, was trending between 14,500MW and 16,000MW. So there is at least a 3,000MW improvement on breakdowns. There is improvement in the generation performance, we’ve seen it specifically at Tutuka, Duvha, Kendal and Majuba [power stations],” said Shunmagum on Sunday afternoon during the National Energy Crisis Committee media briefing.
He said Eskom’s group CEO had dispatched experienced general managers to some of the power stations. “This is why we are starting to see improvements [electricity generating]… it’s early days, but there is definitely improvements.
Shunmagum said another plan was to keep planned maintenance below 3,000MW, and they had been taking advantage of long weekends to do maintenance.
“We’ve used these long weekends with lower demand to do opportunity maintenance,” he said.
He added that cold fronts were a double-edge sword.
“The cold fronts mean good wind generation coming from the Eastern Cape and Western Cape, where we see up to 2,000MW. Sadly, the cold fronts are followed by … no wind and there is a variation between 150 and 2,000MW,” said Shunmagum.
Electricity minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said human resource was an area that required extensive and urgent attention to resolve the energy crisis.
“[We need to] ensure that we address workers’ grievances. As the single biggest resource that we have available to any institution is the workforce. In this instance, we’ve had a workforce that hasn’t been receiving any significant amount of an incentive over a period of time and that translated in the performance [dropping],” he said, thanking the unions and Eskom leadership for concluding a 7%
salary increase deal, effective from July 1 2023 to June 30 2026. They will also get a 7% increase in the housing allowance over the three-year period, and a once-off taxable payment of R10,000 for the first two years.
The pay rise comes after the power utility was earlier in the year given a green light to charge its customers a steep 18.65% tariff increase from April for the 2023 and 2024 financial year.
Ramokgopa also welcomed the recent decision by the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment’s national air quality officer to grant Eskom a postponement regarding the minimum emission standards relating to the sulphur dioxide emission levels as well as the issuing of an updated atmospheric emission licence to Kusile power station.
“That is significant because it is going to allow us to return the three units of Kusile 1, 2, and 3 – which each packs 800MW – to the grid,” he said.
He said Eskom would do everything possible to minimise the impact of sulphur dioxide that got emitted into the environment.
“… Eskom is meeting all the emissions parametres, barring once-off sulphur content…,” he said.
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