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Vice President David Mabuza says SA’s crippling energy crisis will soon be resolved when Eskom’s new power plants come online and other energy sources are established, including gas and renewables.
This despite statements by Eskom executives that the load drop that currently affects the country due to depleted generation capacity and maintenance problems would be with us for a while longer.
Power outages, which could cripple the economy on their own, are likely to be a feature until at least 2022, Eskom said in a presentation to parliament this week.The rating agencies have cited state companies, including Eskom and SAA, which have debts close to R700bn between them, as one of the main risks to the sustainability of the country’s finances.
Responding to questions at the National Council of Provinces, Mabuza, who had to postpone the question and answer session in parliament twice due to health concerns, said Eskom had been paralyzed due to maintenance problems at its old power plants. .
“Our fleet, our power plants, are very old. The maintenance of such power plants presents a problem [as] they fail from time to time, ”Mabuza said.
“Some units will fail and Eskom leadership has said ‘Yes, we are not going to prevent loss of load while implementing routine maintenance and while dealing with outages due to failure of certain units in the system.’
However, Mabuza said the government trusted Eskom’s leadership team and that the energy crisis would soon be a thing of the past.
“South Africans must trust that we will get out of this problem. Why do I say it? There is a new construction program [and it will bring in] additional capacity … from Medupi and Kusile, ”he said.
Construction of the Medupi power plant will be completed by the end of 2020, while Kusile, which will become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the world, could come online three years later.
In June, Mabuza told deputies that Eskom was dealing with cost overruns and defects affecting the Kusile and Medupi power plants.
“Eskom leadership advises us that much progress has been made in making the corrective technical modifications required at Kusile and Medupi. Eskom has committed to completing the Medupi and Kusile power plants by the revised dates of 2020 and 2023 respectively, ”it said at the time.
Mabuza told MPs on Wednesday that independent power producers will also play a key role in solving South Africa’s energy crisis.
“We will see Medupi enter the system, but we are also opening another window of independent power producers. We expect more than 2,000MW to come from that direction. And we hope that this will stabilize the pressure on the system and give us space to repair these old power plants, ”he said.
