WATCH LIVE: Ramaphosa addresses the nation on SA’s energy crisis

President Cyril Ramaphosa is addressing the nation on South Africa’s energy crisis following his meeting with Eskom staff members. According to the Presidency, the briefing follows a number of consultations within government and with stakeholders and energy experts outside of government to find a collective solution to the energy crisis.

Ramaphosa has held consultative meetings with business, civil society, labour and leaders of political parties represented in parliament.

On 16 July 2022, Ramaphosa visited Tutuka Power Station in Mpumalanga and Eskom Megawatt Park Headquarters in Johannesburg and held engagements with power station managers to gain an understanding of the challenges affecting Eskom’s generation fleet.

He is expected to announce measures to address the country’s ongoing issues relating to the energy crisis.

Watch the briefing below courtesy of the SABC:

Ramaphosa’s address comes after Eskom’s announcement on Monday morning that it may be forced to implement load shedding at short notice. This after five units tripped in quick succession in the high voltage yard at Kriel Power Station in the early hours of Monday morning.

According to spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha in a statement, the power utility was investigating the fault, which appears to be related to the heavy mist conditions.

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“The first fault caused units 1, 2 and 3 of the power station to trip, while the second fault tripped units 4 and 5. Unit 6 was offline at the time. The incident removed more than 2 000MW of generation capacity from the network.

“While some generation units at other power stations are expected to return to service during the day, these will take time to load to full capacity. Should there be any further loss of generation capacity during the day, or some units fail to return to service as anticipated, load shedding may be required to be implemented at short notice,” Mantshantsha said on Monday.