A candle burns as loadshedding continues. Picture: Jacques Naude (ANA)
The government will soon be announcing further interventions to deal with the ongoing energy crisis in South Africa, over and above the emergency energy plan presented in July.
This emerged as Cabinet held its scheduled virtual meeting yesterday to discuss a number of pertinent issues related to crippling power cuts implemented by Eskom.
The struggling power utility last week plunged the country into severe stage 6 rotational load shedding as a number of its ageing coal-fired power plants experienced unplanned breakdowns.
Cabinet spokesperson Phumla Williams said on Wednesday that the Cabinet expressed regret that intermittent load shedding was happening at a time when the government was engaged with the interventions announced in July to overcome the energy crisis.
Williams said the Cabinet remained committed to resolving the issue of energy security in the country and welcomed the concerted efforts being made by government and stakeholders to find a permanent solution to end load shedding.
“Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan today presented a briefing on the capacity of Eskom and a progress report from the Technical Committee of the National Energy Crisis Committee,” Williams said.
“Cabinet is still deliberating on these reports and following further interventions, announcements will be made.”
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed in an SABC radio interview on Wednesday morning that some of the measures to strengthen Eskom included filling the vacant posts in the board of directors with skilled personnel.
Eskom has already recruited experienced former employees and energy experts to assist at different power stations to mentor Eskom employees in the execution of plant operations.
In the past week alone, 18 seasoned energy specialists in power plant operations – some with more than 20 years of experience – have re-entered the Eskom system to assist with operations.
Eskom continued to implement stage 5 load shedding on Wednesday, with the possibility of dropping to stage 4 on Thursday as four generation units at four power stations were taken off line for emergency repairs.
The power utility had 4 098MW on planned maintenance, while another 17 121MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
The challenges at Eskom have resulted in untold economic devastation as industry functions at a stop-start pace, with the cell towers of the country’s biggest mobile operators and water pumps at municipal reservoirs affected.
MTN is deploying more than 2 000 generators to counter the impact of higher stages of load shedding, burning through over R400 000 worth of fuel a month just to keep its generators operational.
The crippling power cuts, coupled with a weakening rand due to concerns over the looming global recession, have seen investors take a dim view of South Africa’s growth prospects.
The rand eased 0.04% on Wednesday, remaining at an elevated R17.74 to the US dollar at 5pm after South Africa’s headline inflation eased to 7.6% in August from 7.8% in July, and above market expectations of 7.5%.
PSG Wealth chief investment officer Adriaan Pask said on Wednesday that while the decline in inflation was good news for consumers, higher inflation expectations, along with depreciating currencies continued to force major central banks to accelerate the normalisation of their policy rates, tightening global financial conditions.
“Exacerbated by the return of load shedding, the rand fell, tracking a downward trend in riskier currencies, as a weaker outlook for global growth continues to push investors towards safer assets,” Pask said.
“We remain watchful of the impact of fluctuations in inflation and interest rates on shares exposed to substantial discount-rate risk over this period and we will continue to adjust our equity portfolios accordingly.”
BUSINESS REPORT