Eskom’s generation fleet continues to show sustained improvement, Says Ramaphosa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, in the past two months the unplanned power outages at Eskom’s generating fleet fell to less than 16GW compared to the previous 18GW.

“Eskom’s generation fleet continues to show sustained improvement. Unplanned losses have been reduced to less than 16,000MW in the past two months, down from more than 18,000MW previously,” he said.

The Government will release a detailed report stating the work done to reduce the power outages and what work has been done to improve the performances of Eskom’s power stations a year after the cabinet launched the energy action plan to end the load-shedding crisis.

“Since the launch of the energy action plan, we have worked to add as much power as possible to the grid. Eskom has unlocked close to 400MW from companies with extra available capacity, and a further 600MW is in the process. We have sourced an additional 400MW from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the government was able to report significant progress in several areas such as building new generation capacity and driving regulatory reforms to transform the electricity sector according to BusinessDay.

In his Weekly newsletter on Monday Ramaphosa stated, the reduction came after the cut-planned maintenance during June and July by the Eskom.

A website that will enable South Africans to track the work of the National Energy Crisis Committee and see how to reduce consumption and save on energy bills is also being launched, he said.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwane announced the Eskom debt relief package which aims to enable necessary investment in maintenance and expansion of the transmission network, said Ramaphosa on his weekly newsletter.

“We are fast-tracking the procurement of new generation capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage. Later this year the first three projects from the emergency power programme are expected to connect to the grid,” he said.