Eskom Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter says the country’s electricity system remains stable but there is still a strong possibility of rolling blackouts as maintenance continues. De Ruyter was presenting the state of the system at Eskom headquarters earlier on Thursday.
He says unplanned capacity outages in generation are sitting at 9 000 megawatts, the lowest it has been in a very long time.
Eskom says it has also completed its investigations into the explosion at Medupi 4. The power utility says its investigation shows there was non-compliance with procedures and appropriate action will be taken against those responsible.
De Ruyter says the estimated cost of repair for Medupi 4 is about R2.5 million.
“From a systems point of view, we have 720 megawatts that we don’t have available and puts a further constrain on the system, making it important to monitor and sustain to keep adequate capacity on the system.”
Eskom briefing on state of its power systems:
Security for networks and assets
The power utility says it has deployed an additional 450 security guards to deal with increasing criminal activities on their networks and assets.
De Ruyter says vandalism and theft is major a concern for them because it increases electricity interruptions for customers, public safety concerns and financial losses.
The guards will be deployed to key sites using advanced surveillance technologies such as intelligent cameras and drones equipped with infrared cameras to protect their assets.
“ It is still early days but our aim is to ensure that we are able to protect our assets through intelligence gathering and intelligence to ensure that those who for whatever reason might want to cause damage to our infrastructure that those people are prevented from doing so.”
