The day of reckoning has come for Eskom as it revealed its short-term plans to keep the lights on this winter, as well its slightly longer strategy for the nine months to December. At a media conference held at the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State on Wednesday 3 April, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, informed the press corps that the power utility’s overall objective for the five months to end-August is to ensure there will be enough Megawatts available to power the economy and limit load shedding to a level of one.

This is if unplanned outages can be kept to less than 9,500 MW, which the Minister says will be achieved through the execution of a proper maintenance plan to reduce plant breakdowns, but also getting the public to participate in energy-saving initiatives.

Eskom said it is already in talks with some of the country’s largest energy users and will kick-start its public appeal to electricity users to be more responsible in their power consumption.

The envisioned approach was born from a review completed by the Eskom Technical Review Team, which the Minister and the Eskom board appointed in early March. The group, which includes academic, engineering and power systems professionals, was tasked to conduct a rapid but intensive review of the operations, maintenance and technical environment at Eskom power stations within four weeks of commencing their work.

The report should be available to the public in the second week of April.

Gordhan said that they now have a much clearer picture of what the issues are, and that its stipulated framework of execution for the near term is already in play. The goal is to eliminate power outages in their entirety, but he says that “it is an end, and to get there we need to execute our plans and do so at a 110%”.

“That will take a bit of time to get going,” he said, but in the interim he wanted to ensure the public that the worst-case scenario will be limited to level 1 load shedding, until the end of August, by when they will have better certainty of how best to take the process forward.

Gordhan added that the public will be duly informed of all the facts. This forms part of the strategy: to ensure total transparency of the problems identified at the power producer and the proposed steps to fix them.

It will also show that the organisation is serious about changing its culture from within, he stated.

“Consequence management is key. If you say X and Y need to get done, and it is not done in the required time frame, and it impacts negatively on electricity supply, then there must be consequences for that behaviour, and people should be held accountable,” said Gordhan.

Gordhan reiterated the point that maintaining energy supply should be a countrywide prerogative. He said the public should reciprocate to Eskom’s efforts by being more energy efficient to alleviate pressure from the grid, and indirectly start supporting the fight against climate change. Citizens of other countries have been involved with this practice much more than in the South African context, he added.

The envisioned plan of action for winter 2019, where no load shedding is anticipated by keeping unplanned outages to under 9,500 MW, will include increasing supply from Kriel Unit 2 by 475 MW by 18 April and Matla Unite 5 by 575 MW by 13 May. It will also entail bringing 1,200 MW into the grid from Medupi and Kusile 2 and bringing Kusile 3 on line.

Stabilising diesel supply by getting funds approved and supplies released on time is also an imperative.

The other two goals include improving plant performance during the colder weather and bringing imports from Cahora Bassa back at full load, which will bring an additional 300 MW into play.

Eskom will increase its planned maintenance by 40% compared to the same season in 2018 and has set aside R4.5-billion to address the problems currently experienced at Medupi and Khusile.

By the end of December 2019 the power utility wants Lethabo Unit 5 to be able to add 593 MW to the power mix and Energy Intensive Users like the large aluminium smelters, for example, to release around 500 MW back into the grid. It also hopes that public energy savings initiatives would have delivered between 100-500MW to the power supply. Eskom will spend R49-billion on maintenance over the next five years.

Those are the facts as they are, which Gordhan says will continue to be conveyed as they become apparent.

“We don’t want to play with the sentiment of the public,” he said.

The goal, for now, is to point out the problems, put the plans of action to work and persuade the public to participate.

And one thing Gordhan makes very clear: is that the days of fake news and political ploys are over where Eskom is concerned. DM