Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, said plans to end load shedding that his office implemented since taking over, are starting to bear fruit.
Eskom recently announced that it had suspended load shedding for the weekend due to improved performance in its generator fleet, which has led to a decrease in load shedding across the country.
Ramokgopa was briefing the media in Pretoria, regarding progress in the execution of the Energy Action Plan.
“Our lights are on for most of the hours of the day. We have seen that we’ve come out of the period of sustained no load shedding. We’re beginning to illustrate that it is possible for us to come out of load shedding. Since we came into the office, we have not had a sustained period of load shedding,” said Ramokgopa.
The Minister said this is partly due to exceptional teams at the Eskom generation units, and some of the units returning to operation.
Some of the units include Kusile unit 3, and the return of other units from maintenance was much earlier than anticipated.
“This is good news that it’s an affirmation and validation of the work that the team is doing at Eskom. This is an exceptional amount of work and application that is being done by the team supported by the Chair, board members and everyone,” applauded Ramokgopa.
He said despite turning the corner and starting to show sustained improved performance over an extended period, the country is not out of the woods yet.
The Minister also stressed that they’ll continue to invest a lot of money to deal with maintenance.
“We have not relented on the planned maintenance. So, the gains that we’re making on the availability capacity is improving. We’re fixing these units so that when we get to difficult periods, these units continue to perform, and we don’t exclusively rely on the open cycle turbines,” said Ramokgopa.
The Minister also said generation from rooftop solar energy has more than doubled since July 2022 to over 4500 megawatts.
He said they will continue to intensify and promote the roll-out of such energy, as it is a significant feature and has incentives.
