South Africa’s current energy supply challenges are as a result of aging power plants and maintenance that has been deteriorating due to a lack of maintenance expenditure. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan made this bold statement during an Eskom briefing conducted alongside Eskom’s board chairman Jabu Mabuza as well as Eskom CEO Phakamani Hadebe on Tuesday. For weeks now South Africans have been experiencing rolling blackouts, which the power utility blames on shortage of capacity among other given reasons. Read more: POWER ALERT: Eskom continues with loadshedding Gordhan said: “This is a difficult time. Many people are frustrated because of the uncertainty around what is happening. We fully understand the frustration.” He added: “We apologise for the burden that we are placing on South Africans at this point in time; [also] to the businesses – small and big – that are working under difficult circumstances in the current economic climate.” Responding to questions of how long loadshedding will last, Gordhan said, “At this point in time, we are still trying to get a better grasp of the technical problems and other problems that the power stations are confronting. “That is why there’s the Eskom presidential task team that was created in January. Eskom board and management are developing a turnaround strategy and a nine-point operational plan,” he said. Meanwhile, Mabuza underlined that Eskom’s problems are financial, structural and operational. “We have tried to do what we call a clean-up. What is clear now is that there is money stolen. This is clear,” he stated. However, the bad news he said is that it is “clear looking at the financials that there has been no maintenance. The expenditure on maintenance was getting less and less until 2018. The question is how was money being spent? That is a matter for law enforcement”. Prioritising maintenance According to Hadebe, the power utility will invest R50 billion in maintenance of power stations, over the next five years. “Over the next five years, R50 billion has been set aside. That will not only be dealing with generation because that’s what we’ve been concentrating on, but we’ve taken a decision that if we don’t deal with transmission and distribution, we’ll be facing the same challenges we are with generation. “Going forward, we are to make sure that distribution and transmission are maintained,” Hadebe concluded.

Eskom and government have started planning for Stage 5 and Stage 6 load shedding, according to officials who say that there is a race against time to ensure that a national blackout and grid collapse does not happen. Stage 5 and Stage 6 load shedding imply shedding 5000 MW and 6000 MW respectively. For businesses and residential consumers, it means more frequent cuts of the same duration, depending on where you live and who supplies your power. Eskom’s website also contains load shedding schedules up to Stage 8 but has not implemented stages beyond Stage 4. At the first major briefing to explain the fourth day of Stage 4 power cuts, Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan said that the government and Eskom were determined not to go beyond Stage 4 load shedding where 4000 MW has to be shed in long and regular blackouts to business and residential consumers. But it is now clear that there is planning to Stage 5 and Stage 6 in order to ensure that there is no national blackout. “It will be a huge struggle to overcome this crisis,” said Gordhan. An extensive briefing by Eskom executives and the Department of Public Enterprises on Tuesday has made it clear that the national power supply is more precarious than previously understood. South Africa has bought all available diesel on the high seas (to run emergency power), maintenance of power plants is in crisis because boiler tubes are bursting at eight units across three power stations and there is a planned strike early in April. What does this mean for you? Load shedding is here to stay and possibly at extended lengths now being experienced across the country. In addition, Eskom is in dispute with the National Energy Regulator with SA (Nersa) on its calculation of the Regulatory Clearing Account and it wants to be able to implement higher tariff increases. Nersa gave Eskom much lower additional tariff clearances than it requested, but these already added four percentage points to the allowable tariff of just above 9% for 2019/20. Is there light? A little. On Thursday, a ship with diesel stocks will dock and this supply will ease the crisis; in 10 days, the government will report back with a deeper diagnosis of South Africa’s power woes. All that government could really offer on Tuesday is that there will be better communication of the crisis with the public and an effort to design blocks of blackouts friendlier to life and the economy. “We are very far from a point of total black-out. The system operators main task is to defend and protect the grid,” said Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza in a briefing designed to shed light after four days of load-shedding which has left the economy teetering and the nation seething. “We don’t want to remain in a vicious cycle where load-shedding shifts to other crises (like a water crisis because plants go down in power cuts). We are committed to rebuilding the energy supply and energy confidence,” said Gordhan. One of the reasons for the latest power crisis is that it takes too long to buy the parts Eskom needs to maintain its power station fleet, said Mabuza. The government will be going to the National Treasury to seek an opt-out of strict procurement laws to provide for emergency and faster purchasing. “We are talking to the Treasury, to the Auditor-General to design processes very quickly to enable Eskom to be more responsive. (But we will) make sure no malfeasance is allowed during that process. People will try to take the gap. We will make sure it doesn’t happen,” said Gordhan who earlier revealed that 3000 staff at Eskom are doing business with the utility. An estimated 1000 of the moonlighters have been identified. Staff trading with Eskom is a conflict of interest which has driven up prices and is one factor in the debt pile that Eskom is carrying. Mabuza also disputed a growing narrative by former executives of Eskom who use social media to disseminate a view that independent power producers (IPP’s) of renewable energy are responsible for the utility’s financial woes and for load-shedding. “The board has asked me to say it is not appropriate to keep quiet about the IPP’s. In the revenue determination of what is allowable, there’s a budget of R30bn for IPP’s. In so far as Eskom is concerned, what we buy on IPP’s we recoup from the tariff. We are neutral as far as Eskom is concerned – we pass it onto the consumer. If we spend more than R30bn we get it back through the RCA (the regulatory clearing account). We have many problems at Eskom; IPP’s are not the cause of our problems,” said Mabuza. “We fully understand that frustration and we want to apologise. At the same time, I want to appeal for understanding [in terms of] the nature of the challenges,” said Gordhan who did not give a deadline of when the deep and long load-shedding will stop. He appealed for understanding from the country and said that South Africans should conserve as much electricity as possible. Eskom will reintroduce its programme of buying spare capacity from industrial users who may not need all the energy they are producing at private power stations. South Africa has 48000 megawatts of installed energy but it only currently has 28 000 megawatts available daily, causing the gaping deficit that leads to ricocheting power cuts. There are three senior fix-it teams working on the problem, said Gordhan. A presidential task team has presented one report to Cabinet; the Eskom board and management have presented their own 9-point turnaround plan and there is a team of between 12 and 14 private sector engineers combing through the Eskom power stations to present their own diagnostic report of what is going wrong. Asked if too many cooks did not spoil the broth and whether government risked throwing structures at the problem, Gordhan said the power crisis needed more rather than fewer eyes on the problem or the risk of groupthink (where people begin to think alike and no longer question each other’s assumptions or points of view) was high. “There is an eagerness and determination to get to the bottom of what the problems are. To answer the question: ‘How long will load-shedding last’? We will come back to you in 10 to 14 days. We have no magic formula. There is no magic wand to say load-shedding is over. It will be a huge struggle to overcome this crisis. We want to give the public as much information as possible,” said Gordhan. In the parking lot of the hotel in which the briefing was held, a generator droned loudly. Rosebank in Johannesburg faced Stage 4 load-shedding for the entire period of the briefing – a graphic display of the crisis being described.

Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza says the operational side of Eskom requires “crisis reaction” as well as time and speed to fix the current load shedding situation. He was briefing the media on Tuesday, along with Minister of Pubic Enterprises Pravin Gordhan as the country entered the fifth consecutive day of rotational black outs. The media was taken through several slides showing the gap between Eskom’s installed capacity of 48 000 megawatts and average available supply of 28 000 megawatts Seven generating units are currently out of the system due to boiler tube leaks. This is the single biggest cause of plant breakdowns. The power utility’s fleet is ageing and some of the power stations are 50 years old and the average is 37 years old. Boilers can contain up to 600 kms of tubing and a breakdown anywhere along the system requires the boiler to be cooled down. The maintenance team can then access the area and fix the leakage using high precision welding. The boiler is then re-started and steam is generated to power the turbines. This entire process takes an average of a week. “In the last five years, maintenance spend was getting less and less, [which was] incongruent with plant ageing more and more,” Mabuza said. Mabuza said the question is what was the money earmarked for maintenance being spent on. He added that these cases are being pursued as civil and criminal matters.

South Africa’s energy minister, Jeff Radebe, has highlighted the importance for the country to consider all energy sources available in the country’s future energy plans. “During the energy planning process, we therefore cannot discriminate against or favour any particular energy carriers,” said Radebe. SAnews cited Radebe stating that it cannot be ignored South Africa is endowed with abundant coal reserves that come at a cheap price. “However this is counter-balanced by the high carbon content that coal has, and this cost has been internalised when we analysed policy options where emissions reduction targets and carbon taxes are introduced. “We have to consider nuclear, and despite its high capital costs, we have not lost sight of the fact that this is a clean energy source that can contribute optimally for electricity generation. We have to consider hydro as well, particularly with respect to Cahora Bassa in Mozambique and [Grand] Inga in the DRC,” he said. Radebe added that the department of energy has sent out strong signals with regards to the role that renewable energy technology should play in the country’s energy mix. The Minister’s comments come as power utility Eskom is implementing loadshedding due to shortages in capacity while also battling mounting debt.