According to Eskom, it is encouraging to hear about new changes and completely supports the initiatives President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled on Monday to address the ongoing electrical crisis.
The President announced immediate actions to be taken over the next three months to speed up efforts to upgrade the grid’s ailing generation capacity.
Eskom will purchase extra electricity from existing private generators like mines, paper mills, shopping malls, and other private companies that have excess power in order to address the megawatt gap.
The power provider believes that these improvements will go a long way toward improving the country’s 14-year-old power generation challenges.
Eskom anticipates that the actions will hasten the end of load shedding and, through structural adjustments, develop the South African energy producing sector.
Eskom finds it especially pleasing that the government has taken these actions to enable it to quickly acquire additional generation capacity from existing IPP with excess capacity, to purchase spare parts and equipment from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and even to have the resources to increase the funding of the maintenance budget.
In order to fill the gaps, Eskom claimed that it is working with all interested parties to introduce the essential capabilities.
The utility added that it has already contacted the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) to see if any of its members are keen to help Eskom improve its skill set.
Eskom stated in the statement that it was putting a lot of effort into restoring its Energy Availability Factor (EAF), particularly at its coal plants, where performance has been lacking.
“Eskom will be able to step up its maintenance efforts to spur improvements in EAF thanks to the President’s actions,”
Additionally, the State-owned firm is already well along in its pursuit of battery energy storage systems, and it will soon begin rolling out additional BESS tranches.
In addition, Eskom has already made land with grid connections available for long-term leases by independent power producers, with more to come soon, the President stated.
In the meantime, Eskom said that lifting restrictions on private sector investments in electricity generation capacity would help unleash investments, provide jobs while the projects are being built, and eventually cut the cost of electricity.
Eskom is dedicated to further streamlining this process. “Eskom has greatly reduced the time necessary for IPPs to get cost estimate letters and budget quotations for grid access.”
Eskom stated that it is eager to contribute to the swift and successful implementation of the President’s plan and will work with the authorities, labour, and the business sector to put an end to load shedding as soon as possible.