Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso warns that the electricity crisis is not over, as the system cannot deliver for the economy. As winter approaches, load shedding is likely to reach record levels.
Eskom plant performance has improved, showing an energy availability factor (EAF) of 60%, which is one of the main reasons for lower load-shedding levels. However, the targets for EAF are 65% this year and 70% next year, which is impossible.
The government and businesses are working together to address the power crisis, but many questions remain, and more needs to be done. At a National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom) briefing, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa briefed the public on the state of the grid and planned to tackle the crisis.
Some interventions include incentivising customers to invest in embedded generation by paying them for grid feed-in, cutting red tape to allow embedded generators to operate even if not feeding into the grid, working on a standardised wheeling framework, setting clear deadlines for private producers, boosting and building more grid capacity for new projects, accelerating and planning for generation expansion in areas like the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, better management of the existing grid, introducing an electricity production curtailment framework to "shed" generation at times when it exceeds grid capacity and restructuring of Eskom.
In conclusion, the electricity crisis is not over, and more work is needed to address the issue.
