Karpowership, the Turkish company seeking to supply power to South Africa, said it will demand a retraction from Andre de Ruyter, the former chief executive officer of Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., because it said he had inferred the firm was corrupt. The company, which generates electricity from ship-mounted, gas-fired power plants, in 2021 won about 60% of an emergency tender seeking to secure 2,000 megawatts of power to ease shortages that have plagued South Africa for almost 15 years. Court challenges from rival bidders and environmentalists and a yet-to-be resolved delay in getting Eskom, the national power utility, to sign a power-purchase agreement have stalled the deal.
Stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented until 16:00 on Tuesday, after which Stage 4 will be rolled out until 16:00 on Wednesday. Stage 5 loadshedding will then be implemented from 16:00 until 05:00 on Thursday, with Stage 4 loadshedding from 05:00 until 16:00.
As Eskom is reviewing the loadshedding framework to prepare for the prospect of higher stages of loadshedding in future, specifications developer NRS Association of South Africa has assured the public that this is primarily a proactive measure to enable the utility and municipalities to be ready to respond should it be necessary.
Engineering News last week quoted Eskom acting generation executive Thomas Conradie as saying that a review of the loadshedding framework was under way to prepare for the prospect of higher stages of loadshedding – potentially up to Stage 16 – in future.
More than two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the electricity crisis had been declared a National State of Disaster, the regulations giving effect to that declaration have been Gazetted. In a statement issued on February 28, it was confirmed that the regulations were approved following a sitting of the President’s Coordinating Council, as well as a special sitting of Cabinet, which took place on the evening of Monday, February 27.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha, who joined Eskom on a fixed-term contract three years ago, will be leaving Eskom at the end of February. Mantshantsha had agreed to join Eskom as spokesperson to lead the Media Desk during a difficult period in which the organisation needed to restore trust and credibility in its dealings with the public and stakeholders.
Eskom is seeking comment on proposed amendments to the grid code, which it says are required to facilitate open and non-discriminatory access to the network for new generation in a context of severe grid constraints, especially in the Cape provinces, as well as changing market dynamics. Included in the proposed changes is the creation of a “reservation queue” that will be governed by the principle of “first-ready, first serve”, implying that projects with a higher state of readiness will be prioritised over a competing project with a lower state of readiness.
Business organisation Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso says the organisation is calling for issues to be explored in the vein of public interest, following State-owned utility Eskom’s former CEO André de Ruyter’s “controversial” interview with e.tv’s Annika Larsen in which he implied that a Cabinet Minister was aware of corrupt activities at a high level. “There’s important work to be done. Our three key network industries are in varying degrees of distress. No one needs reminding how severe our electricity crisis is as Stage 6 loadshedding hit again last week but, if reforms aren’t effectively implemented in the other network industries the consequences will be just as severe,” she writes in her weekly newsletter.
The ANC has threatened to file criminal charges against former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter if he doesn’t report his allegations of corruption at the power utility, backed with evidence, to law enforcement agencies in seven days. The party said De Ruyter was bound by law because of his former position as the head of the power utility to report acts of corruption.
Stage 4 loadshedding will continue until 16:00 on Monday afternoon, Eskom confirmed. It will be followed by Stage 5 from 16:00 to 05:00 on Tuesday morning. Loadshedding will then be reduced to Stage 3 between 05:00 to 16:00 on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Stage 4 will be implemented during 16:00 to 05:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The KwaZulu-Natal government is planning to establish a battery energy storage system (BESS) under power utility Eskom’s flagship BESS project, Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said on February 24. In her State of the Province Address, she noted that the BESS would be based in Elandskop.
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