The chairperson and his board are tasked with increasing the country’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF) to 75% — a target set by public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan. The EAF is currently less than 60%.
“We want to be given the space to conduct a proper assessment. The second thing I need to be upfront about is we must guard against placing hope on an individual. Eskom has got 35,000-40,000 very capable people and not a one person's show in the office of the chair,” said Makwana.
According to Makwana, the “onboarding programme” will include visiting various power stations, establishing the root causes and what is needed to be done to improve generation capacity.
“Only by dealing with the root causes will we really be able to solve these problems permanently, and this takes time,” he said.
New Eskom board vows to share plans to resolve energy crisis after two months
Image: Bloomberg
Eskom's new board chairperson Mpho Makwana has vowed to comment on plans to resolve the country’s energy crisis after two months.
Makwana told Newzroom Afrika this week the board will use the time to conduct an “onboarding programme”, saying the Eskom he led in 2011 was not the same as the present one.
The chairperson and his board are tasked with increasing the country’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF) to 75% — a target set by public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan. The EAF is currently less than 60%.
“We want to be given the space to conduct a proper assessment. The second thing I need to be upfront about is we must guard against placing hope on an individual. Eskom has got 35,000-40,000 very capable people and not a one person's show in the office of the chair,” said Makwana.
According to Makwana, the “onboarding programme” will include visiting various power stations, establishing the root causes and what is needed to be done to improve generation capacity.
“Only by dealing with the root causes will we really be able to solve these problems permanently, and this takes time,” he said.
‘Power cuts should start easing within 10 days’, says Eskom CEO
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said power cuts should start easing within 10 days when big generation units are expected to come back online.
Speaking to Radio Sonder Grense, De Ruyter said: “We are doing everything possible to add megawatts to the grid. We have started buying power from Zambia and we are looking at Mozambique and the private sector to add megawatts.”
He said the private sector has 6,000MW of new renewable projects in the pipeline.
The projects were targeted after President Cyril Ramaphosa said in July companies will be allowed to build power plants of any size without a licence to meet their own needs and to sell it to the grid.
De Ruyter said it will probably take another 18 to 24 months for that capacity to come onto the network.
Eskom has implemented more than 120 days of load-shedding so far in 2022.
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READ MORE:
Load-shedding moves to stage 4 as more generation units trip
Eskom chair Mpho Makwana says management to get ‘benefit of doubt’
'There's a combination of skills unlike in the past': Mantashe throws his weight behind new Eskom board
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