Public enterprises working with Eskom to address load-shedding

19 September 2022 - 20:01
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Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says he is concerned about the strain that load-shedding places on households and businesses in the country.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says he is concerned about the strain that load-shedding places on households and businesses in the country.
Image: Freddy Mavunda

The department of public enterprises on Monday said it has been working around the clock closely with Eskom to ensure that generating units are returned to service, adding much needed megawatts to the national grid.

The department said on Monday it regretted the latest implementation of load-shedding, which was at stage 6 on Sunday and Monday and understood the frustrations of citizens.

“We are deeply mindful and concerned of the strain that this places on households and businesses in the country,” public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said.

The department said Eskom’s operational challenges remained an issue and concern for the country.

“We have mobilised the full resources of our teams together with Eskom to address this immediate challenge of load-shedding.

“We are alive to the fact that load-shedding impacts on households, businesses and disrupts daily lives of South Africans. All efforts are directed towards returning megawatts lost due to unplanned breakdowns and outages,” Gordhan said.

He said he had been meeting with the board and management of Eskom to implement immediate solutions to ensure the current generation fleet provides reliable electricity to the country.

He said some of the interventions include the approval for the emergency procurement of 1,000MW from independent power producers and industrial co-generators.

“This demonstrates the impact of cutting the red tape and getting approvals within hours instead of months and bringing in new capacity within two months at the very least.”

Gordhan said in the past week alone, 18 seasoned energy specialists in power plant operations — some with over 20 years of experience — have re-entered the Eskom system to assist with operations.

The department, as part of the national energy crisis committee, visited a number of power stations to assess the full extent of their challenges to identify short to long term interventions for implementation.

“This information will further assist the implementation of the energy actions as announced by the president in July and the work of the energy crisis committee is already at an advanced stage,” Gordhan said.

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