Cape Town - The time of speaking in vague terms had passed. The question that needed to be answered was: when will load shedding end?
This was the sentiment expressed in Parliament on Tuesday, as Eskom was pressed by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) who wanted answers on how it is planning to turn the energy crisis around.
“When will load shedding end? That's the certainty that's required, no timeline makes holding you accountable very difficult. How do we hold you accountable as is our responsibility in a vacuum and that vacuum is the roadmap and the timelines? There has to be a roadmap, energy certainty, policy certainty. This thing can't be open ended, people pull out estimates from the sky. What informs the 18 months (of load shedding)?” Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa asked.
However, Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter could not provide a definitive answer.
“I will try (and) answer (by) referring to risk. The 9200MW coming online, (we) anticipate that the trend will continue to grow with huge activity investing in new capacity, (so) risk will diminish in the next 18 months.
On whether load shedding would be eliminated, De Ruyter said that would be a “brave” forecast to make.
EFF MP Nazier Paulsen asked: “The poor pay more the wealthy pay less, why is that? Mr De Ruyter, you telling me an end to load shedding is out of (your) hands, is not very comforting to me as a citizen. ”
“The President said his hands are tied, (you say) it’s out of your hands so who’s going to be our saviour and give us our electricity?”
De Ruyter responded that it was important to distinguish between Eskom tariffs and municipal tariffs.
“They add a mark-up. In practice that mark-up in some instances gets inflated beyond what’s necessary.
This is an important narrative that also needs to be put out there to ensure they are fair and transparent and that municipal reading frameworks are consistent throughout the country.”
He added that municipal debt was also a huge problem, with people paying municipalities for the electricity they use but municipalities not paying that money over to Eskom.
De Ruyter said when they tried to assist municipalities in addressing metre tampering, installing smart metres and so fourth, negotiations would fail, when Eskom insisted revenue collected be paid to a Eskom bank account.
Eskom chairperson, Mpho Makwana asked to come back and devote a series of presentations to the timelines surrounding the end of load shedding if the committee wanted a deeper dive into the technicalities.
He also referred to the Generation’s Operational Recovery Plan that Eskom presented which was geared towards improving Energy Availability Factor (EAF) from 57% to at least 70% from the end of 2025 onwards.
This year Eskom said it would be focused on setting up the enabling structures, turnaround plans, reliability maintenance, guarding performance at current flagship stations (Medupi, Lethabo, Matimba and Peaking), focusing on the top six priority stations (Tutuka, Duvha, Majuba, Kusile Matla, Kendal) and sourcing external specialised skills, among others.
Next year would be focused on addressing internal skills gaps, returning of Kusile 1, 2 and 3, as well as the synchronisation of Kusile 5.
By 2025, Eskom aims to have Kusile fully operational and return Medupi 4 from long term forced outage. It also plans to close old stations as per the approved dead stop dates and continue to focus on current and future skills.
Cape Times