The Presidency has released the 18-month update on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan (EAP).
The EAP was introduced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2022 and is coordinated by the National Energy Crisis Committee under the leadership of Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
The EAP’s key interventions are to:
- Fix Eskom and improve the availability of existing supply.
- Enable and accelerate private investment in generation capacity.
- Fast-track the procurement of new generation capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage.
- Unleash businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar.
- Fundamentally transform the electricity sector to achieve long-term energy security.
The President’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the EAP update highlights “significant progress” made.
“The detailed update on the Energy Action Plan shows that significant progress has been achieved over the last six months in implementing government’s plan to end load shedding.
“Government is working towards the full implementation of the Energy Action Plan to bring an end to load shedding once and for all,” he said.
Magwenya highlighted some of the milestones made over the past six months.
“Some of the achievements achieved in the past six months include the return of the three units at Kusile Power Station months ahead of schedule, the amount of rooftop solar installed by businesses and households, more than doubling to over 5 000MW, helping to reduce demand on the grid.
“In December, three further Independent Power Producer [IPP] bid windows were released for 7 615MW of new capacity from solar, wind, gas and battery storage,” Magwenya said.
Other key milestones reached include the following:
- Eskom has launched the Cross Border Standard Offer Programme (CBSOP), which will procure up to 1000 MW in additional power from neighbouring countries for a period of three years.
- The first project from Eskom’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) programme has been connected to the grid, and will provide 100 megawatt hours (MWh) of storage capacity. Seven other projects are in construction as part of Phase 1 of the programme, which will together provide a total of 833MWh of capacity.
- An additional 3 400MW of grid capacity has been immediately unlocked in the Cape region through the implementation of curtailment, which enables Eskom to fit more generation capacity onto the grid.
The full report can be accessed on this link https://rb.gy/0ebd2b.
Meanwhile, Eskom has suspended load shedding until Sunday.
“Due to the sustained available generation capacity and the planned return to service of 2 300MW of generation capacity by Friday, along with the anticipated low demand over the long weekend, load shedding will remain suspended until Sunday at 4pm.
“Eskom will provide an update for the week ahead on Sunday afternoon or communicate should any significant changes occur,” the power utility said on social media platform, X. – SAnews.gov.za
RDTN
Denmark: You have two cows. They have more rights than you.
Prez Dog
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.