Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer: “Load shedding will be here for 18 months”
South Africans have to get used to load-shedding woes and that is the sentiment shared by Eskom Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer. Oberholzer says Eskom will implement load shedding for the next 18 months and that it won’t be able to end until sufficient generating capacity is added to the electricity grid to meet demand.
Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer: “Load shedding will be here for 18 months”
South Africans have to get used to load-shedding woes and that is the sentiment shared by Eskom Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer.
Oberholzer says Eskom will implement load shedding for the next 18 months and that it won’t be able to end until sufficient generating capacity is added to the electricity grid to meet demand.
Addressing the Agri SA conference on Thursday, Obershozer says the power utility, Eskom is going through a rough patch as the load shedding will be downgraded to Stage 1 at 16:00 on Friday.
“We need another year or year-and-a-half to get out of this,” Oberholzer said at the Agri SA conference near Johannesburg.
“We are going to go through a tough time over the next year and a half. People can then plan accordingly. To the extent possible, Eskom will endeavour to limit load shedding to night-time to have minimal impact on the economy and population.”
As far as land deals, the struggling power generator, Eskom, is expected to sign the first contracts to lease land to five independent power producers on Friday so that they can develop renewable energy projects, the utility said.
As per media reports, Eskom announced in June that it had selected 18 companies to lease sites at its power plants, and the bids for about 4 000 hectares are ultimately for projects expected to realise 1 800 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.
South African citizens and businesses are angered over the nation’s record power cuts and politicians are seeking to deflect blame for a crisis that’s been a quarter century in the making.
Stung by criticism amid Stage 6 of power outages, President Cyril Ramaphosa raced home from Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in the United Kingdom, cancelling plans to travel on to United Nations meetings.
An announcement followed that the board of state power utility Eskom had been replaced and an ambitious efficiency target for its predominantly coal-fired plants was set and action had been taken.
Main Image: Eskom/Bloomberg
