Breakdowns at Eskom a crisis, say experts

Experts warn the situation at Eskom is becoming a crisis, despite efforts to keep the power on for the local government elections on Monday.

On Wednesday night, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, along with Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter, vowed there would be no load shedding this weekend after the country was moved to stage 4 load shedding earlier in the week.

Load shedding went down to level 3 last on Thursday which is expected to continue until today 5am, after which it will drop to level 2 until tomorrow 5am.

Gordhan said load shedding stage 4 was due to breakdowns at a number of units at Eskom generation plants.

He added there were some delays as generators subject to maintenance work did not come back on line.

“By a few more thousand units will be put back on the system as a result of plants returning to operations, which will result in a downgrade from stage 3 to stage 2,” Gordhan said.

He added there would be no load shedding over the weekend. De Ruyter said there were no apparent deliberate acts of sabotage.

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“We were talking about criminal activities including cable theft that continue to hamper our operations,” he said.
De Ruyter confirmed that in an attempt to turn the utility around, a variable pay component, resulting in salaries being at risk if certain performance targets were not met, would be implemented.

ANC acting secretary-general Jessie Duarte said the governing party’s claim that the latest bout of load shedding may be due to sabotage by some individuals in Eskom was based on conjecture.

“It is an assumption that we are making because nobody is giving us clear answers,” Duarte said in an interview with Newzroom Afrika on Wednesday.

Political analyst Piet Croucamp said this was not the first time a concentration of power stations needed maintenance or simply broke down.

Renewable energy consultant Clyde Mallinson said the country needed to recognise the whole thing as a crisis.

Mallinson added there was no such thing as catch-up maintenance. He said Eskom needed about 10 000MW in stored capacity.

He said it would be brilliant to have 6 000MW of solar electricity, 4 000MW wind energy, and 2 000MW storage.

“We can’t do it tomorrow, but we can do it in two to three years’ time,” he said.

Mallinson said Eskom could retire the whole coal fleet, including Medupi and Kusile, in 15 years’ time.