WATCH: Eskom losing thousands of megawatts due to lack of maintenance

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said Eskom is losing hundreds of thousands of megawatts of electricity due to a lack of consistent maintenance at some of its power stations.

Ramokgopa was briefing the media on the Energy Action Plan (EAP) on Sunday as the country continues to battle rampant power cuts.

The minister said the historical lack of maintenance of electricity infrastructure resulted in the underperformance of some power stations which could be adding capacity to the electricity grid.

“Significant amount of opportunity is giving us an EAF (Energy Availability Factor) of 40% and we know we can do significantly better because those units are big units and 40% really is an injustice on what the team is capable of achieving.”

Watch the briefing by Kgosientsho Ramokgopa

Historical backlog

Ramokgopa said the historical backlog is having a serious impact on the grid.

“Part of the underperformance we are seeing is a function of historic reasons. Historic in this instance I’m referring to Eskom’s inability to invest in the maintenance.”  

Ramokgopa also defended Eskom’s diesel and electricity bill since the beginning of April as it battles to keep the lights on.

Eskom spent R12.4 billion on diesel since April, a cost Ramokgopa said is necessary to protect South Africa’s economy.

“You have to make a choice on whether you continue to burn this diesel – essentially expending a lot of money and protecting the SA economy, or allow the economy to go [into] free fall. Of course we don’t have that money in buckets.”

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BRICS

Ramokgopa said Johannesburg will also get no special treatment from Eskom when it hosts the BRICS summit next week.

“Johannesburg will be expected if there is load shedding on the day to make its contribution to ensuring we protect the grid. How they allocate that, they will make that determination.

“So, if you happen not to see load shedding on the day it might be two things. One, we don’t have load shedding across Eskom or if there is no load shedding at the events of the BRICS it could be that they are not on schedule as per Johannesburg’s schedule for that particular areas to be load shed,” Ramokgopa said.

Meanwhile, Eskom said stage 1 load shedding will be implemented from 5am until 4pm on Monday and further updates will provided should any significant changes occur.

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