JOHANNESBURG - At a local government manifesto review, the ANC said government’s interventions to fix Eskom are delivering results.
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said Eskom’s energy availability has improved from 48% during load shedding to over 80% at present.
“As you all know, President Ramaphosa introduced the Energy Action Plan as an intervention mechanism to ensure that we fix Eskom, we are able to accelerate private sector investment in new generation capacity, we are able to accelerate public procurement of new generation, we are able to incentivize rooftop solar solutions, and also continue with the unbundling of Eskom from a vertically integrated monopoly and introducing competition.
“We're in a good space even during the coldest period just the other few days. No challenges from a generation point of view. We still had excess generation capacity. So that's how far we've come.
“When we experience load shedding at the peak of load shedding, the energy availability factor was 48%. On the 26th of July, about two weeks ago, the energy availability factor was at over 80%. The first time since 2017, and this is sustained,” Ramokgopa said.