Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      TCS | South Africa’s Sociable wants to make social media social again

      23 June 2025

      Tech stability key to getting South Africa off damaging financial grey list

      23 June 2025

      ‘System offline’ scourge to end, says Schreiber – but industry must pay

      23 June 2025

      Naspers shifts to an AI-first strategy – and it’s paying off

      23 June 2025

      Letter: South Africa risks missing AI wave while world surges ahead

      23 June 2025
    • World

      Watch | Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

      19 June 2025

      Trump Mobile dials into politics, profit and patriarchy

      17 June 2025

      Samsung plots health data hub to link users and doctors in real time

      17 June 2025

      Beijing’s chip champions blacklisted by Taiwan

      16 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E3: Behind Takealot’s revenue surge

      23 June 2025

      TCS+ | AfriGIS’s Helen Hulett on how tech can help resolve South Africa’s water crisis

      18 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E2: South Africa’s digital battlefield

      16 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025
    • Opinion

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Energy and sustainability » Structured and deliberate: De Ruyter’s plan to bring stability to Eskom

    Structured and deliberate: De Ruyter’s plan to bring stability to Eskom

    By Tebogo Tshwane3 February 2020
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    Andre de Ruyter. Image: Nampak

    Eskom’s new CEO, André de Ruyter, hopes to regain South Africa’s trust by addressing operational stability at the power utility. This involves an 18-month maintenance plan that is aimed at restoring the utility’s ability to ensure reliable and consistent energy supply.

    Hot on the heels of Eskom announcing renewed load shedding the night before, De Ruyter informed the media on Friday about the ethos of the plan, which involves returning to “philosophy maintenance”. This means Eskom will be conducting strict maintenance on its power generation fleet in line with the manufacturer guidelines as opposed to the piecemeal approach it had adopted, which only focused on emergency maintenance.

    This new plan will be implemented within the next three months, said De Ruyter, and will ensure that Eskom gets a handle on unpredictable plant breakdowns which leads to the expensive use of diesel to produce electricity as well as load shedding that is often not communicated speedily to the public.

    If we don’t implement this maintenance plan there is a very real risk that the deterioration in our system performance will continue

    “If we don’t implement this maintenance plan there is a very real risk that the deterioration in our system performance will continue… We therefore need an intervention, and we need it as soon as possible,” he said.

    Eskom has a threshold of 9.5GW for unplanned plant breakdowns, but over the past three months has had between 10GW and 13.5GW in lost capacity, leaving the system under severe strain.

    Giving an update on the state of Eskom’s system, chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said Eskom has had to institute 21 days of load shedding since September when its summer plan was announced. For the year to date, Eskom’s unplanned outages have been higher than anticipated, recording 471 trips from a target of 420 while its energy availability factor — the proportion of available generating capacity — was lower than the 71.5% target, at merely 68%.

    ‘Space to fix’

    “We will, unfortunately, have to expect some increase in load shedding (during the 18-month period),” said De Ruyter. “We are going to do this in a structured, careful and managed way as we will have to give ourselves the space to fix what we need to fix.”

    Eskom’s board has given its full support to the maintenance philosophy plan.

    Oberholzer said the utility had approached a number of the original equipment manufacturers in order to enter into long-term contracts with them to assist Eskom in operating and maintaining the plants.

    Image: GCIS

    The utility started this philosophy maintenance in the past two weeks by taking 3.2GW off the grid for long-term maintenance, not by the original manufacturers but by using the current resources within Eskom. The affected units are at the Kendal, Medupi, Hendrina, Kriel, Lethabo and Majuba power stations.

    At the same time, Eskom will be prioritising the fixing of defects at its new-build stations Medupi and Kusile, with these two over-budget power stations expected to be in full operation by 2023.

    De Ruyter emphasised that Eskom’s “divisionalisation” – as opposed to a legal “unbundling” – would be done in a careful and structured way in order to minimise the risks that could ensue with regards to tax, covenants with lenders, and employment relations.

    The end state has not changed at all, it is the way of arriving that we want to do properly and prudently

    “I would rather first go through all divisionalisation process and ensure that we are able to address these risks and put in place structures that will enable us to operate independently of each other, and then we can migrate,” said De Ruyter.

    He however clarified that this was not a deviation from the road map presented by the public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan last year, saying “the end state has not changed at all, it is the way of arriving that we want to do properly and prudently”.

    In the coming week, Eskom hopes to finalise appointments for the boards of the three entities – Transmission, Generation and Distribution. Once that is completed, said De Ruyter, the divisions will begin running like businesses with full operational and bottom-line accountability.

    “Rather than hitting the breaks,” De Ruyter countered, referring to news headlines about his plans, “we are hitting the accelerator in a structured and deliberate manner to ensure that we manage the risks appropriately”.

    • This article was originally published on Moneyweb and is used here with permission


    Andre de Ruyter Eskom Pravin Gordhan top
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleBitcoin spikes as Chinese stocks plunge
    Next Article WorldCom fraud mastermind Bernie Ebbers dead at 78

    Related Posts

    World Bank set to back South Africa’s big energy grid roll-out

    20 June 2025

    The little-known company disrupting Eskom’s monopoly

    16 June 2025

    Coal to cash: South Africa gets major boost for energy shift

    13 June 2025
    Company News

    IoT connectivity management in South Africa – expert insights

    23 June 2025

    Let’s reimagine Joburg using the power of tech, data and AI

    23 June 2025

    Netstar doubles down on global markets while backing SA growth

    23 June 2025
    Opinion

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    AI and the future of ICT distribution

    16 June 2025

    Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

    13 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.