Eskom has warned that the country faces another 10 years of power constraints while the utility gets sorely neglected maintenance back on track. And it will be pushing hard for increased tariffs.
At a briefing today, CEO Tshediso Matona told the nation that years of poor maintenance has left the country in a precarious position. “Any slight trigger can push us over. We are living on the edge,” he says.
The problem we find ourselves in today, Matona says, is squarely the fault of poor maintenance over the last five years. “Eskom is a highly technical environment. It is very important that our stakeholders, the public and the nation understand it all comes down to maintenance.
“Many of the generating units of Eskom were supposed to have been switched off for maintenance and they are now switching themselves off.”
Because there is now very little reserve in the system, the system remains vulnerable, he says – and with winter approaching, more maintenance is needed now to cope with the higher winter load.
“We have achieved some successes with our maintenance. However, some of these gains are eroded when unplanned trips happen.”
New generation will help Eskom to gain some headroom to perform needed maintenance, Matona adds.
This breathing space is currently being bought with diesel – but this is meant to be used for very limited periods and is very expensive to run, which has put the utility’s financial health under pressure.
“I thought I would just throw the issue of increased tariffs into the mix. Fundamentally Eskom’s financial health is dependent on whether we get the right tariff.”
In terms of the maintenance, Matona stresses that programme being put in place will take some years to implement.
“This is a problem that has been accumulated over a long period of time and will not be reversed overnight,” he says. “We would probably need years and years to overcome. The maintenance plan is a 10-year plan.
“We are at a point where we must decide that we cannot continue in this way and expect to get out of a difficult situation. We have decided, and supported by government, to do the right thing and that means getting down to our maintenance religiously.”
Matona points out that Eskom could continue to defer maintenance in order to keep the lights on, but this will simply compound the problem.
“It is not any more about whether load shedding is part of our lives or not, but about how will be all cope with it – and Eskom wants to help the public with this.,” he says.
“We will try to make the load shedding process as easy as possible. We will do what we have to do with maintenance, and other stakeholders must also support us. We will need support to help us over this difficult period.”
I cannot understand that Eskom together with its large shareholder, the ANC led government, has neglected to do the basic maintenance on the equipment that supplies a critical utility to the country, to say nothing of not growing the supply proportionately to the demand. The very fabric of our society is under threat. Private enterprise has always managed to create the necessary growth and wealth creation, despite what the government messes up, but without electricity, this challenge will grow by a few orders of magnitude. We need some very innovative ideas. Mine is to encourage the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on all the rooftops in South Africa, by extending the rebate available for solar water heaters to photovoltaic installations. Every rooftop with photovoltaic panels will reduce the power Eskom has to produce. Lastly, I cannot understand why those entities not paying for their electricity don’t get cut off. Why should those of us who pay suffer because large percentages of users don’t pay, including government departments and municipalities (read the government).