Eskom guzzling millions of litres of diesel a day to keep the lights on

As South Africans quiver at the thought of stage six load shedding from 5pm on Tuesday evening, Ekom said it was guzzling through millions of litres diesel per day to try and keep the lights on.

Eskom’s top brass were addressing the media on the current system challenges which have plunged the country into stage 4 rolling blackouts from last week.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the grid is under severe pressure.

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According to De Ruyter, while there is a total demand of 31,990 megawatts of power, the capacity available at this stage forecast for 27,124 MW which creates a shortfall in generation capacity.

In order to keep the lights on, the parastatal requires diesel to run the open gas turbines, a very costly alternative, and De Ruyter said Eskom is burning through millions of litres every day.

“We are burning about two million litres of diesel per day at both Ankerlig as well as Gourikwa – those are our gas turbine open cycle sites. For the month of June to date we have already consumed 85 million litres of diesel.”

South Africans are feeling let down by government on the electricity crisis, with broken and false promises by former President Jacob Zuma who is now being referred to as the “father of state capture” by some analysts.

“Load shedding is now a thing of the past,” Zuma told staff at Eskom’s Megawatt Park in 2016.

During his State of the Nation Address, Zuma had also announced that government would provide support to a range of state-owned companies while implementing the reforms that would make them more effective in delivering on their mandates.

“I wondered, having not been here, am I telling the truth? Now I am going to tell people there will never be any load shedding, I have been here, I have seen it,” Zuma added.

Zuma referenced a presentation that he said gave him confidence.

“Even though I did not go to any school, I understood it. It was very articulate. I wanted to run out in the street and say we have won, and I am told that soon we will have surplus energy to sell.”

Obviously Zuma was not telling the truth as South Africans continue to find no mercy with chronic loading shedding on a frequent basis which has left them aggrieved and struggling to find alternative sources of energy, burning even more holes in their pockets.

Meanwhile, there are calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare a state of disaster at Eskom.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said Ramaphosa’s Cabinet must bear full responsibility for the unfolding electricity supply crisis.

DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia wrote to Cabinet almost two months ago to address the Eskom crisis.

“But as is often the case with this lethargic Cabinet, they chose to bury their heads in the sand and now the country is staring into the abyss of a national grid shutdown. The ongoing silence by Ramaphosa, Gwede Mantashe and Pravin Gordhan is proof that they are little more than bystanders in a crisis of their own making.”

Cachalia said the party’s call for a state of disaster was predicated on the view that an Electricity Emergency Response Plan (EERP) must be activated to lay out short-, medium- and long-term goals to bring additional generation capacity to the grid.

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