South Africa’s state-owned power utility said it will increase outages this week due to a delay in returning nine generating units to service.
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s state-owned power utility said it will increase outages this week due to a delay in returning nine generating units to service.
Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. will implement so-called stage 4 loadshedding — in which 4,000 megawatts is removed from the grid to prevent its collapse — from 5 a.m. on Tuesday, then 6,000 megawatts will be cut from 4 p.m., according to a statement on Monday.
Eskom Shortlists Five CEO Candidates (April 24, 10:51 a.m.)
Eskom’s board shortlisted five candidates for the position of chief executive officer, according to the chairman of the beleaguered power utility.
The company will meet Monday to start the process of choosing a leader to run the utility, Eskom Chairman Mpho Makwana, said at an event broadcast online. He didn’t indicate when the board expects to complete the process. Calib Cassim, who served as Eskom’s chief financial officer, took over as interim CEO in February after Andre de Ruyter left the role after accusing state officials of theft and corruption.
Makwana also said the utility is working to improve the reliability of its generation fleet to reach a 65% energy availability factor by the end of March 2024. The EAF, or amount of capacity producing power, has been declining every year since 2017, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. It has fallen below 50% as Eskom implements record power cuts.
Ramaphosa Restates Carbon Emissions Commitment (April 24, 8:29 a.m.)
South Africa’s plan to re-examine the time-frame and the process of decommissioning or mothballing coal-fired power plants to address the electricity crisis won’t reverse the nation’s position on the just energy transition, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
“Any decision on decommissioning will be informed by a detailed technical assessment of the feasibility of continuing to operate older plants,” Ramaphosa said Monday in his weekly newsletter. “It will also be informed by the time-frame in which we can expect new capacity from other energy sources and the impact on our decarbonization trajectory.”
South Africa remains committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 2030 to within a target range that, at its upper level, is compatible with limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C (34.7F), he said.
No End to Power Cuts This Year (April 22, 2:40 p.m.)
South Africa will be unable to stop crippling power cuts before the end of 2023, according to Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
“It is not technically possible for us to end loadshedding by the end of the calendar year,” Ramokgopa told Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA, using the local term for rolling blackouts. “We will do everything possible to ensure that its intensity is not as severe, so that we get the South African economy going,” the minister said in response to media questions at a meeting of the governing African National Congress’s top leaders.
The nation often faces as much as 12 hours of blackouts per day as Eskom struggles to meet demand with its fleet of aging coal-fired plants, which is affecting output. The International Monetary Fund recently lowered its projection for South Africa’s 2023 economic growth to just 0.1%.
Ramokgopa said plans over the next six months to limit power cuts includes reducing infrastructure sabotage at Eskom, buying about 30 billion rand ($1.7 billion) of diesel for the utility’s open-cycle turbines, improving the efficiency of under-performing power stations and less maintenance work, especially during peak periods.
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