South Africa: Eskom Power Stations Still Vulnerable To Vandalism, Theft

Power utility Eskom says acts of maleficent continue to impact operations and its ability to generate revenue.

This despite the fact that Eskom has kept the lights on for over 100 days.

Mpumalanga power stations are threatened by vandalism of electricity infrastructure and several reports of malpractices, including sabotage and theft of diesel and coal.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena says they are working tirelessly to protect the grid.

“Criminal activities like infrastructure theft, vandalism and sabotage undermine the stability and reliability of power supply and impact businesses large and small.

These maleficent acts negatively impact Eskom operations and its ability to generate revenue.”

Ongoing investigations by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) have uncovered corruption at Eskom power stations in Mpumalanga.

This has led to members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) being deployed to the stations.

The SIU spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, says the SIU has been investigating several Eskom officials and contractors doing business with the power utility.

“There are instances where people are swapping the coal.

When they go on tender, they bring quality coal, but they deliver different kinds of coal of lower standards.

There are instances where people deliberately destroy conveyor belts to create alternatives for transporting the coal on the road rather than from the mine to the power stations on conveyor belts.

It is huge, we have been investigating in Eskom for a while now, and I can safely say there are many things happening,” says Kganyago.

According to South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan issued in 2019, 11.3 gigawatts of coal power at seven plants were scheduled to retire by 2020.

To date, only the Komati power plant in Mpumalanga has been retired.

Mokwena adds Eskom has already planned for when stations shut down, “We have decoupled Just Energy Transition from station shut down, simultaneously addressing security of supply as well as Repowering and Repurposing projects.

We have developed 50 repowering and repurposing projects in the pipeline to deliver approximately 2 172MW and 1 754 permanent jobs.”

The power utility urges members of the public to refrain from vandalizing and stealing electricity infrastructure.

With higher energy consumption during the winter, Eskom has implemented load-reduction to protect the network.

Source: Sabcnews