Stage 6 cost the economy up to R1 billion a day – Ramokgopa

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says Stage 6 load shedding costs the economy about R1 billion a day.

Ramokgopa, who was briefing the media on Sunday, said there would be more planned maintenance outages, with load shedding expected to end at the end of 2024. 

“Stage 6 costs the economy up to R1 billion a day. The Minister of Finance [Enoch Godongwana] makes the point one of the structural constraints to the South African economy is load shedding, so clearly the economy won’t recover.

“It is going to continue to push people into conditions of abject poverty, out of employment and the economy will continue to threaten the social wage,” said the minister. 

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Back to normality

Ramokgopa said Kusile Power Station resumed generating 800MW at Unit 4.

Kusile’s unit 4 was out for a 20-day planned maintenance while units 1 and 3 were taken out by the collapse of the flue-gas desulphurisation unit last October.

“We are closer to resolving this problem because you need that additional generating capacity. There’s been a significant improvement in the energy availability factor over a period of time,” said Ramokgopa.

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“Kusile sits on the critical path. We think we can allow the temporary intervention with the attendant mitigating measures, and we’re committing by the end of 2024, we will restore normality and ensure that we address the issues of load shedding.”

Reduced load shedding

Eskom said load shedding would drop to Stage 1, but more Stage 2 and 4 are expected for the week. 

“Due to improved generation capacity and performance, load shedding will be reduced to Stage 1 from 12pm on Monday until 4pm, followed by Stage 3 load shedding from 4pm until 5am on Tuesday (previously communicated as Stage 4). 

“Thereafter, load shedding will be implemented as previously communicated where the pattern of Stages 2 and 4 will be implemented until further notice. Eskom will publish another update should any significant changes occur,” it said.