Eskom latest: Fund for farmers; outages intensify on breakdowns

South Africa’s government established a fund to reduce the effect of power outages on the agriculture industry and incentivise investment in alternative energy, Agricultural and Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza said.

The fund — a joint project between the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform and the Land Bank — will provide a combination of loans and grants to qualified recipients, Didiza told reporters in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday. It will have R1.21 billion ($65 million), with R500 million provided by the department and the remainder as loans from the Land Bank.

“The priority will be on supporting dairy farmers, piggeries, poultry, all irrigated commodities and on-farm processing,” she said.

Eskom to intensify outages on generator outages (August 29, 2:48 p.m.)

Eskom will remove 4 000 megawatts from the electricity grid from 4 p.m. on Tuesday, double the amount that it had withheld since 5 a.m. after more generation units broke down.

Over the past 24 hours, a generating unit at Camden, Kendal, Kriel, Kusile, Matla and two generating units at Matimba power plants were taken offline for repairs, the state-owned utility said in a statement. The delay in returning to service a generating unit at Tutuka and Kendal Power Stations is also contributing to the current capacity constraints, it said.

Eskom posts R5bn loss in first quarter (August 29, 2:40 p.m.)

Eskom posted a R5 billion loss in the first quarter of its financial year, National Treasury’s Deputy Director-General of Public Finance Mampho Modise told lawmakers in Cape Town, without providing a comparative figure.

Revenue grew to R70.9 billion in the three months through June, from R66.3 billion a year earlier, driven by a 19% increase in tariffs from April 1, she said.

“Eskom’s profitability remains hampered by poor long-term financial sustainability arising from an inadequate tariff path, poor generating plant performance, escalating arrear municipal debt as well as high financing costs,” Modise said.