Government looking at private sector financing to expand the grid: Ramokgopa

Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says government is looking at tapping into the liquidity of the private sector as it seeks to expand the grid. He was speaking at his weekly briefing on the energy action plan. Ramokgopa says electricity capacity improved between the weeks of the 18th to 22nd September resulting in lower stages of load shedding.

Minister Ramokgopa has reported back that the South African Transmission Financing Seminar rallied financiers which he says are instrumental in helping to expand the grid.

“We are looking at tapping into the liquidity that is available from the private sector, to allow us an opportunity to expand the grid to allow us to be able to accommodate the renewable energy solutions that have been rolled out in the country and the number of them have not been connected to the grid as a result of the constraint on the transmission side. The transmission expansion and strengthening side will require considerable amount of resources and we know that the Eskom balance sheet is constrained, we know that the sovereign matrix has deteriorated so it is important that we explore opportunities for the country to tap into the liquidity that is sitting with the private sector,” says Ramokgopa.

Video: Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on Energy Action Plan [embedded content]

Electricity capacity available has improved over the past week which saw lower levels of load shedding stages and even load shedding been suspended. The improved capacity came on the back of some of the units which were taken offline for planned maintenance at the beginning of the month after the winter season returning online.

“On average, it reached about 29 664 MW over that period. We have seen that it peaked during the 19th of September, we were able to bridge the 30 000 MW. This is on the back of the unit, some of the units that were on planned maintenance returning and we have that there has been some level of improvement on the capacity available and that made it possible for Eskom to revise downwards the intensity of load shedding and we also saw that the periods of the day, in the week that was where load shedding was even suspended and it also allowed us an opportunity to go into the long weekend period,” Ramokgopa added.

“We’ve been working on the plan for some time now.  Like we indicated, when Kusile unit started returning we are expecting to remain on these lower stages of load shedding as well, we have no intention that the stages will increase as Kusile returned,” says Bheki Nxumalo, Group Executive Generation at Eskom.

Ramokgopa says they will continue relentlessly with executing planned maintenance to avoid units failing in the future. He says the unplanned capacity loss factor averaged 13 751 MW.

“You can see that; we are now beginning to almost consistently beginning to be below the 15 000 MW in relation to unplanned capacity loss factor. We are striving at least for now to go even below 13 000 MW to ensure that we have as many MW available because once we reduce the unplanned capacity loss factor those megawatts get to be added on the available capacity,” Ramokgopa elaborates.

Power utility Eskom will be hosting a state of the system on Wednesday in Megawatt Park which is expected to give a comprehensive view of the electricity system in the country.