Now that load shedding looks set to be here to stay for the foreseeable future, politicians have highlighted the urgency of opening up the generation industry to independent power producers . Power utility Eskom’s new CEO Andre de Ruyter told journalists at a media briefing yesterday that load shedding was unavoidable as the entity could no longer afford to push back planned maintenance on its ailing and aging infrastructure.
With power stations experiencing an “unprecedented” number of unplanned breakdowns, exceeding the 9,000MW threshold to avert a grid collapse, dark days were ahead. Democratic Alliance shadow minister for public enterprises, Galeb Cachalia, said this was a sign that dissolving the monopoly Eskom had in the energy generation market was urgent and would ease the pressure on the grid.
Last week De Ruyter said accommodating IPPs into the national grid would require substantial investment amounting to about R18 billion.