A pact between South Africa’s government, labour unions and business to cut Eskom’s debt won’t include a pledge to use the pensions of state workers as had been initially proposed.
Browsing: Energy and sustainability
Eskom, which relies on coal to generate most of South Africa’s electricity, issued a request for bids to build its first battery-energy storage system, according to a newly published tender document.
Eskom plans to cancel a contract to buy as much as R14-billion of fuel oil from Econ Oil & Energy after a probe it commissioned found Econ’s fees had been inflated.
André de Ruyter, the CEO of South Africa’s debt-stricken state power utility, is navigating a political minefield as he collects overdue debt, reduces electricity theft and bolsters revenue.
Six of Eskom’s generation units tripped on Monday, dramatically increasing the chances of the return of rolling blackouts this week.
Eskom’s gross debt surged to R480-billion after the struggling state-owned power utility borrowed from its lines of credit, documents show.
Eskom’s own mishandling of a repair contract led to the closure of its Camden power plant, a move that worsened power cuts by South Africa’s near-monopoly electricity provider, the company said.
State-owned power monopoly Eskom cannot say how long a new round of power cuts that began on Friday will last, its spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.
Eskom will escalate the load shedding level from 1 to 2 at 2pm on Wednesday after it blamed high demand for the need to ramp up the rolling nationwide blackouts.
While some generating units have returned to service, Eskom will implement stage-1 load shedding on Wednesday. The power utility is set to implement stage 1 from 9am until 10pm.