US makes investment in Eskom grid

South Africa’s state power utility has ramped up the use of its emergency generation facilities since the weekend as it tries to balance reduced capacity from its coal-fired plants with increased demand amid a cold front.

During peak demand on Monday, Eskom used 22 open-cycle and other gas turbines, compared with 10 on Sunday, according to updates on the utility’s Twitter feed. The last time the company reported using more than 20 turbines was May 22.

To preserve its emergency reserves, Eskom will maintain increased power outages until further notice, it said on Twitter on Tuesday. It will implement so-called stage-4 load shedding, where it removes 4 000 megawatts of electricity from the grid, from 2 p.m. until 5 a.m. daily, and will cut 3 000 megawatts from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m.

US investment in transmission grid (July 11, 12:34 p.m.)

The US Trade and Development Agency announced a $1.3 million grant to help fund technical assistance to assess the economic, technical, commercial and financial viability of using new technologies to improve South Africa’s transmission grid, Business Day reported.

The provision of the grant could potentially help leverage as much as $200 million in additional financing, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said, citing USTDA director Enoh Ebong.

President signs Eskom debt relief Bill (July 10, 8:17 a.m.)

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Eskom Debt Relief Bill into law at the weekend, according to a parliamentary notice.

The legislation enables Eskom to receive funding directly from the National Revenue Fund over the next three years in exchange for the government obtaining equity in the company.