Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan has said that the department has mobilised all available resources with Eskom to fix the ongoing load-shedding crisis.
The electricity provider has been dealing with failures and poor returns to service of generating units, which has resulted in Stage 6 load shedding across the nation.
Following the restoration of certain units to service, this has now been lowered to Stage 5.
“We are deeply mindful of the strain that this places on households and businesses in the country. We are alive to the fact that load shedding impacts on households [and] businesses, and disrupts the daily lives of South Africans.
“We have mobilised the full resources of our teams, together with Eskom, to address this immediate challenge of load shedding. All efforts are directed towards returning megawatts due to unplanned breakdowns and outages,” Gordhan said.
He said that the department has met with Eskom to develop quick remedies to guarantee that the present generating fleet supplies the nation with dependable energy.
These efforts include:
- The approval of the emergency procurement of 1 000 MW from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and industrial co-generators, which could bring more capacity onto the grid within two months.
- Eskom has been granted approval to procure an extra 200MW from the Southern African Power Pool.
- Ensuring reliable maintenance of power stations and plants through the recruitment of former experienced employees and energy experts.
- Some 18 energy specialists in power plant operations have been brought in to assist with operations.
- The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has, through the work of the National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM), initiated Bid Windows 5 and 6 to bring more megawatts to the grid.
According to Gordhan, NECOM has already begun visiting power plants in order to evaluate and assess the issues Eskom is experiencing and to find potential solutions.
“This information will further assist the implementation of the energy actions, as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2022, and the work of the energy crisis committee is already at an advanced stage.”