Page 12 - AfrElec Week 45 2021

AfrElec ESKOM AfrElec

SA’s beleaguered Eskom insists

stability is crucial, as power outages

continue to dog the country

SOUTH AFRICA AS South African state power utility Eskom new generation capacity is added to plug a 4,000-
instituted another round of severe power out- MW to 6,000-MW gap.
ages, calls for heads to roll mounted. On November 8 the Black Business Council
South Africa has faced another dark week, and The National Union of Mineworkers – the
and calls for the resignation of Eskom’s CEO largest union at the power utility – called for De
André De Ruyter have escalated. At the begin- Ruyter’s resignation and that of the board. De
ning of the week another round of harsh sched- Ruyter rejected the notion that he should resign,
uled power cuts was announced as a result of insisting that as long as the Eskom board consid-
insufficient power generation in the country. ered him appropriate, he would stay on.
De Ruyter, however, hit back, saying stability “It is probably more important to have con-
in management was more important than ever in tinuity of management, than to fall back in the
handling the current crisis. trap Eskom has been in the past 10 years, when
He said in a press briefing on the evening of we had 11 different chief executives,” said De
November 9 that the power utility needs conti- Ruyter.
nuity of management. Supporters of De Ruyter, Energy expert AntonEberhard tweeted on
such as apex business organisation Business November 9 that the calls for De Ruyter to resign
Unity South Africa, also pointed out that he was were misplaced. “The cacophony of calls for
trying to manage a crisis that was not of his own sacking Eskom’s current management as South
making to the best of his ability. Africa continues to be plagued by power cuts
Eskom needs to implement the scheduled is misplaced. South Africa has had 12 CEOs in
outages because its ageing fleet is not providing its national power utility since 2009, on average
adequate power for the needs of South Africa, one per year. Now we need sustained manage-
and if the system is overloaded South Africa ment action. That lack of continuity has clearly
would face a total blackout that could last for contributed significantly to instability in the
weeks. Managing this ageing fleet to prevent organisation.”
this devastating blackout means instituting Commenting on this week’s power outages,
a planned maintenance programme which De Ruyter explained that a blackout in Zam-
involves removing units from the grid for longer bia had a cascading effect on Southern Africa’s
periods. But unplanned breakdown was very power pool.
much a reality in Eskom’s fleet. But the outages should lessen as the weekends
The power cuts have had a devastating effect with a unit at Lethabo station expected to return
on South Africa’s economic growth, but were to service, followed by others at Kriel, Medupi,
needed for the stability of the power grid to pre- Duvha, Tutuka and Majuba later in the week.
vent a total blackout in the country that could “This will have a positive impact on the
last for weeks. outlook for load-shedding going forward,” De
The latest set of outages occurred because of Ruyter said.
units tripping at its power stations, and further He also warned that some municipalities had
shutdowns at other critical plants. But De Ruyter not implemented the scheduled power outages
has tried to assure weary South African that the to stabilise the grid, resulting in more severe
company intends to move to less outages in the outages across the country. He said Eskom had
next few years, due to more units returning to engaged with the municipalities in question, and
service over the next few years. was continuing discussions with them.™
Things will get better, he said, but the sched-
uled power outages will remain a reality until

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