FORTY days have passed without load shedding in Mzansi, a result of sustained improvements in the generation capacity.
On Monday, 6 May, when the Minister in the Presidency responsible for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa briefed the media on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan.
He said this is not staged and that there's no connection between today and the voting date, Wednesday, 29 May.
Ramokgopa said Eskom's biggest enemy is ensuring the issue of the units failing is addressed.
He said unplanned outages are on a downward trajectory and are better compared to the same period last year.
"From 26 April 2024 to date, unplanned outages have reduced by close to 4 400MW from 15 523MW to 11 036MW. There's been no increased usage in the Open Cycle Gas Turbines for the period of the first week of May in relation to the last reported figures during the System Update on 26 April 2024," Ramokgopa said.
On Sunday, 5 May, Eskom announced that load shedding remains suspended after being suspended for 39 consecutive days due to ongoing sustained improvements in generation performance.
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The power utility further said there's been a consistent and significant improvement in curbing unplanned outages over the past few weeks.
"This recovery is something that's been experienced over a period of time in this instance, over a 24-month period. In fact, all indications suggest that we'll continue to improve. These are the fact we've recorded without necessarily making assumptions and projections going into the future," Ramokgopa said.
"We're not yet there but getting there much quicker than anticipated. It's important to indicate that from 26 April 2024 to date, unplanned outages have been reduced, a confirmation that, indeed, we're moving in the right direction."
Furthermore, Ramokgopa said for the comparative period last year, unplanned outages increased from 16 882MW to 18 198MW.
"The reduction in unplanned outages, as observed recently, continues to have a positive impact on the energy availability factor (EAF). The EAF has been above 60% since 29 April 2024 and reached the 65% mark on 1 May 2024. The year-to-date (YTD) performance is currently at 58.99%, a notable improvement from the 53% EAF in the same period last year.
"What carries us is not the diesel but the backbone of Eskom with the power station such as Kusile, which is one of the six we've identified for intervention. We've seen that Kusile, Matimba, Majuba and Medupi are indeed carrying us. We're not where we want to be, but are close," he added.
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