President Cyril Ramaphosa says a team of independent experts is conducting a diagnosis of the problems at poorly performing power stations and taking action to improve plant performance.
He says they have identified six power stations over the next few months to recover additional capacity. This is contained in today’s instalment of the President’s weekly letter to the nation.
South Africa is still reeling from the severity of stage 6 load shedding and is now shuttling between different stages with currently on stage 3.
However, President Ramaphosa says government is committed to reduce the severity of these blackouts on households and businesses.
He says Eskom is working to connect Kusile Unit 5 to the national grid by September this year. Again, efforts are in place to restore other units at Medupi, Kusile and Koeberg.
The President also says Eskom has imported 300 megawatts of capacity from neighbouring countries with negotiations under way to secure an additional 1000 megawatts and to buy surplus power from companies with available generation capacity for a period of three years.
He says government has signed agreements for 25 projects from bid windows 5 and 6 of the renewable energy program representing 2 800 megawatts of new capacity.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa has appealed to Eskom to delay the implementation of the 18.65% tariff increase,
He made the utterance during his closing speech at the ANC Free State Elective Conference:
