Eskom’s board has shortlisted five candidates for the position of CEO, according to the chairman of the beleaguered power utility.

The company was due to meet on Monday to start the process of choosing a leader to run the utility, chairman Mpho Makwana said at an event broadcast online. He didn’t indicate when the board expects to complete the process. Calib Cassim, who served as Eskom’s chief financial officer, took over as interim CEO in February after André de Ruyter left the role after accusing state officials of theft and corruption.

Makwana also said the utility is working to improve the reliability of its generation fleet to reach a 65% energy availability factor by the end of March 2024. The EAF, or amount of capacity producing power, has been declining every year since 2017, according to the CSIR. It has fallen below 50% as Eskom implements record power cuts.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s plan to re-examine the timeframe and the process of decommissioning or mothballing coal-fired power plants to address the electricity crisis won’t reverse the nation’s position on the just energy transition, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

“Any decision on decommissioning will be informed by a detailed technical assessment of the feasibility of continuing to operate older plants,” Ramaphosa said Monday in his weekly newsletter. “It will also be informed by the timeframe in which we can expect new capacity from other energy sources and the impact on our decarbonisation trajectory.”

South Africa remains committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 2030 to within a target range that, at its upper level, is compatible with limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, he said.

Prognosis

In a separate development, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said South Africa will be unable to stop load shedding before the end of 2023.

“It is not technically possible for us to end load shedding by the end of the calendar year,” Ramokgopa told broadcaster eNCA. “We will do everything possible to ensure that its intensity is not as severe, so that we get the South African economy going,” the minister said in response to media questions at a meeting of the ANC’s top leaders.

Read: Eskom’s new plan to reduce load shedding

Ramokgopa said plans over the next six months to limit power cuts include reducing infrastructure sabotage at Eskom, buying about R30-billion of diesel for the utility’s open-cycle turbines, improving the efficiency of underperforming power stations and less maintenance work, especially during peak periods. — Amogelang Mbatha, (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP