Eskom CEO gives good news about load-shedding

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said power cuts should start easing within the next 10 days when big generation units are expected to come back online.

The state utility ramped up power rationing to 4,000 megawatts from 6 p.m. Tuesday until further notice due to generation trips at its Kendal and Lethabo plants and has imposed a record 120 days of blackouts so far in 2022.

“We are doing everything possible to add megawatts to the grid,” De Ruyter told Johannesburg-based Radio Sonder Grense.

“We have started buying power from Zambia, and we are looking at Mozambique and the private sector to add megawatts.”

The private sector has a total of 6,000 megawatts of new renewable projects in the pipeline, he said. Those projects were targeted after President Cyril Ramaphosa in July said companies would be allowed to build power plants of any size without a license to meet their own needs and to sell them to the grid.

De Ruyter said it would probably take another 18 to 24 months for that capacity to come onto the network.