The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has released a report which shows that Eskom had implemented 860 hours of load shedding in 2020 alone.
According to the report, the power utility’s capacity to generate electricity in the past ten years has declined by ten per cent.
This is despite the more than R450 billion spent on the Kusile and Medupi power stations as well as the implementation of sustainable energy sources.
Senior engineer at CSIR, Joanne Calitz says, “Unfortunately 2021 has started off quite rocky, we’ve already had a lot of load shedding in the first three months of the year. The demand has actually reduced relative to the first three months of 2020 even though we aren’t in a lockdown necessarily.”
“The demand is lower than in the previous year but we are still load shedding and the energy availability factor to date is only around 61%, so that’s really causing the load shedding that we have now,” explains Calitz.
Below is the full interview with Joanne Calitz:
Meanwhile, on Monday, Eskom’s chief operating officer (COO) Jan Oberholzer has called on members of the public to brace themselves for more load shedding in the next five years.
He says the power utility will continue its maintenance plans for its power stations despite a heightened risk of load shedding.
Eskom which implemented load shedding last Thursday says it will continue until Wednesday.
This as it struggles to generate adequate electricity to meet demand.
Breakdowns and maintenance are the cause of inadequate power generation.
Eskom briefs the media in the video below:
