Connecting new generation capacity ‘crucial’

Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said at the Union Buildings in Pretoria yesterday “there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not an oncoming train.”

Ramokgopa said he expected the intensity of load shedding to keep reducing, but connecting new generation capacity to the grid remained critical.

‘Tremendous progress’

He said there was “tremendous progress in relation to solutions on the transmission side”.

From the discussions the team had in Davos, it emerged that international investors were interested in investing money into the project.

“There is insatiable appetite by the private sector to invest in the space. We are not short of financing. Liquidity is significant there.”

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“The discussions that the team had in Davos were on the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan programme. There is significant amount of liquidity.”

According to Ramokgopa, challenges on the transmission side were equivalent to the ones on the generation side and if these weren’t tackled immediately, they would be more catastrophic than the challenges on the generation side.

In relation to generation, he said: “Koeberg unit one is at 100% power and has been synchronised to the grid since November last year.”

Two issues regarding Kusile

He emphasised there are two issues regarding Kusile. “We have received a special dispensation from Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Barbara Creecy to construct what we call the permanent stacks remediation that made it possible for us to get the generation capacity of the three units.

“Our intention is to complete this restoration of a permanent solution where we are now in compliance with our licence parameters in relation to sulphur emissions. We are still planning to have this project completed by 31 December.”

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He claimed they were making progress on Medupi 4 and should be up running in mid2025.

“Aside from new generation capacity, we are doing everything possible to return the units that have failed, especially unit four 800MW in Medupi,” he said.

Two major points

There were two major points over the past two weeks: “The first is the consistent capacity available is greater than peak demand.

“If one asks if you are making the claim that capacity available is greater than peak demand, then why do we have load shedding, it is because 3 000MW of capacity has to be drawn from the open-cycle gas turbines which are burning diesel, so we have reduced our consumption of diesel.”

He said Eskom has not depleted its diesel budget and should find a balance to reduce load shedding while not exceeding its budget.

“The financial year still has two or three months so it’s important not to exhaust it because someone pays for it and that will be the end consumer.”

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