Eskom plans to ramp up maintenance

Image: Eskom

“There are two strategies going forward by Eskom. [The first] is that of heightened maintenance on some of the operating units, which has not been done over a period of time.

"The strategy is [meant] to regain generating capacity. Some of the plants that are due for maintenance should be taken out. However, we continue to experience other breakdowns in other plants, which tends to create a situation where in a day, we have an excess of 1,1500MW of power that is missed out of the rest of the generation fleet, which then makes load shedding unavoidable, in a sense,” said Phumulo Masualle, public enterprises deputy minister.

The department is working tirelessly to ensure that improvements and efficiencies are achieved in terms of the operational capacity at Medupi and Kusile.

“Attending to the defects that make us unable to achieve maximum output from there is a matter that is receiving priority. We are also working with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to accelerate [the acquisition] of additional capacity from independent power producers in order to close the capacity gap that is there. [These are] the measures and support that the department is giving to Eskom to mitigate the current environment,” he said.

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