Cape Town - As the country braces itself for another week of unrelenting load shedding, President Cyril Ramaphosa admits there is no quick fix for load shedding but stresses progress is being made to put an end to the rolling blackouts.
Writing in his weekly letter, Ramaphosa said: “For every person living in this country, the past two weeks of load shedding have been extremely frustrating and challenging. The widespread public anger is wholly justified.”
He said the load shedding “is beyond an inconvenience” and bears dire consequences – from education to public safety to the provision of health services.
“Large and small businesses alike are losing money and the energy crisis is endangering investment and our economic recovery,” Ramaphosa said.
He acknowledged a “sense of despair” that load shedding is worsening and “that there appears to be no end in sight to this crisis”.
“Yet, even in the darkness of load shedding there is and must be an end in sight to our electricity crisis. We are making progress in the implementation of the additional actions I announced in July, even though the effects may not be immediately felt.
“Given the unpredictable performance of Eskom’s fleet of coal-fired power stations, we will not be able to eliminate load shedding in the short term. This is the unfortunate reality of our situation, which has had a long history.”
He said the immediate goal was to reduce load shedding frequency by addressing power station breakdowns, which would be a mountain to climb as the power stations have aged.
He coupled that challenge with the fact that critical maintenance had not been carried out at necessary intervals previously.
Weekend newspapers abounded with reports that Ramaphosa plans to axe the entire board, which lacks the requisite skills. Some reports suggested Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter would not be spared the chop. Ramaphosa broached the subject.
“Government is giving close attention to the skills, experience and capabilities of the Eskom leadership to ensure that the company has the best people at all levels of the organisation,” Ramaphosa said.
“These interventions will help to reduce the severity and frequency of load shedding as we are bringing new power on to the grid over the medium term to increase energy supply.”
He said the energy utility was “urgently” implementing measures to boost plant performance, which is prioritised until new generation power projects go live. Ramaphosa said Eskom officials were addressing the coal supply crisis and working with Transnet to transport coal.
He said the officials are watching the consistency of the supply from collieries to stations, and addressing the poor quality of coal, which often leads to plant breakdowns.
He said experienced labour was being returned to assist with plant operations, management and mentorship.
Ramaphosa said since July, Eskom had been working on procuring emergency power, leading to last week’s launch of power purchase programmes for 1 000 megawatts of emergency capacity from companies which already have generation capacity.
He said the government signed power purchase contracts for 420MW with the first three preferred bidders.