The troubled South African power company, Eskom, was informed by the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) that it may have access to electricity from Botswana during off-peak hours. Following his address to the country on the energy issue, President Cyril Ramaphosa made the statement.
Ramaphosa said that neighboring Southern African nations, including Botswana and Zambia, had an excess of electricity and that Eskom “will now import power” from these nations.
In a statement on Tuesday, July 26, the BPC claimed that the effective execution of the Maduo26 Strategy had allowed it to fulfill local electricity demand during off-peak hours and even export excess power to the area.
The BPC has increased its ability to generate local electricity thanks to the Strategy. “Morupule A and Morupule B Power Plants were in full operation for the last three months, delivering an average of 580MW to the national grid daily.”
According to the organization, energy output from the power plants must be reduced when all eight of its electricity producing units are operating at full capacity and there are no customers for the extra power during off-peak hours.
According to BPC, this is done “to prevent dumping power into the Regional grid, which is not acceptable practice as it can lead to extremely disruptive system disruptions.”
Additionally, load reduction is not a practical option for the company since it jeopardizes the power plants’ ability to operate at their peak efficiency and puts a burden on generators. According to the BPC, load reduction has happened often in the past.
“BPC has therefore started engaging Eskom to purchase the excess electricity supply generated during off-peak times (weekends) in order to protect our plants against load management fluctuation and also to ensure that surplus electricity has a secured market.”