Eskom to reach 300 days of no load shedding at midnight

At midnight tonight, Eskom will reach 300 days without implementing load shedding – a milestone not seen since June 2018.

Eskom has shown vast improvement since the implementation of the Energy Action Plan introduced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2022, as well as the implementation of the power utility’s own Generation Recovery Plan.

“This performance has also resulted in year-to-date diesel savings of R16.42 billion [year-on-year], which is about 62.9% less than the R26.09 billion spent during the same period last year, as a result of the continued execution of the Generation Operational Recovery plan.

“In August, Eskom shared its summer outlook for the period from 1 September 2024 to 31 March 2025, predicting a likely scenario of a load shedding free summer due to structural generation improvements. This outlook remains unchanged,” Eskom said.

The power utility listed the following as its key performance highlights:

• Year-to-date unplanned outages average 12 040MW, remaining below the summer base case of 13 000MW by 960MW.
• As of Friday, unplanned outages stand at 12 566MW, while available generation capacity is 28 145MW.
• The Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF) is at 25.22% for the financial year-to-date (1 April 2024 to 16 January 2025), improving from 32.78% in the corresponding period last year. This represents a 7.6% improvement.
• Ongoing planned maintenance at 6799MW aligns with our summer maintenance strategy to further improve reliability in preparation for winter 2025 and beyond.
• Strategic use of peaking stations, including pumped storage and OCGTs, remains available to manage electricity demand during peak times, particularly during evening peaks (5pm to 10pm).

Meanwhile, the power utility has appointed Dr Candice Hartley as Chief People Officer and Rivoningo Mnisi as Group Executive for Renewables.

Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, said: “In the last ten months, we have focussed on strengthening our executive team not only to bring in specialist skills to drive the delivery of our strategy in a fast-moving and increasingly competitive marketplace, but to also drive interventions to address the legacy management control issues that have characterised our recent audit findings”.

Hartley, who boasts two decades of experience in Human Resources, served as Executive Partner and Head of People at KPMG South Africa before joining Eskom.

Mnisi also brings to Eskom some two decades of experience in digitalisation, innovation, and sustainability and was Chief Strategy Officer at Exxaro before joining the power utility.

“A key area of [Hartley’s] focus will be to ensure Eskom has the skills the organisation requires to operate in a competitive marketplace. She will also transition Eskom’s human capital practices and workforce plans to align with the strategy and ensure the wider adoption of technology across the organisation.

“[Mnisi’s] focus will be on delivering an Eskom renewable energy business that will become a significant player in this segment, focussing on work already in progress for an executable initial pipeline of at least 2GW of clean energy projects by 2026. He will also lead the advancement of Eskom’s pipeline of more than 20GW of clean energy projects to diversify its energy mix as part of the emissions reduction strategy,” Eskom said in a statement. – SAnews.gov.za

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