By Zukile Majova
Political Editor
The end of load shedding is pushing further into the distant future with Eskom now saying six of its key power stations are in urgent need of attention.
This year, especially in the run-up to the 29 May elections, was billed as the year that the government would end load shedding.
But it is turning out to be one of the worst years for load shedding.
And it’s getting even worse.
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told a media briefing on the Energy Action Plan that ahead of the high demand associated with winter months, six power stations need urgent maintenance.
“We have identified six power stations that require urgent and immediate attention,” said Ramokgopa.
“Among them are Thuthuka, Kendal, Kusile and Majuba because they are those that we expect to give us the best returns.”
He said pre-winter season maintenance was needed across the entire Eskom fleet.
The minister also promised that load shedding will not be as severe this coming winter, from May to August.
“You will see that as we move into the winter period we’re going to bring down our planned outages and as we bring them down it means we are ramping up on available capacity and be able to meet demand. We don’t see the intensification of load shedding,” he said.
Eskom group executive for generation Bheki Nxumalo said stations like Kendal and Thuthuka have not improved as expected.
“We understand why. With Thuthuka we are starting to commission those units so in the next two months, we are going through a major commissioning period. We expect that Thuthuka will start performing much better,” he said.
“At Kendal we understand the issues and we are now also starting to commission the units. We are dealing with both the partial load losses and the unavailability,” he said.
Pictured above: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa briefing the media on government’s Energy Action Plan.
Source: X
