The latest plants built by South Africa’s financially strapped power utility experienced outages on Thursday that led to ongoing electricity cuts.
Browsing: Eskom
Eskom implemented stage-one rotational load shedding on Thursday, then progressed the blackouts to stage two later in the day. The state-owned utility blamed a “shortage of capacity” for the move.
As Eskom continues to warn consumers of rotational load shedding, deputy President David Mabuza has told MPs that the power utility has developed a detailed turnaround plan to address its challenges.
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The former acting CEO of South Africa’s state power utility blamed its crippling levels of debt on excessive costs incurred in building new plants and denied that it could be attributed to corruption.
Eskom has warned that there is a high risk of load shedding on Monday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the financial and operational challenges faced by power utility Eskom are not caused by the independent power producer programme.
Massive areas of South Africa’s largest city were hit by power outages on Friday afternoon after a power line from state-owned utility Eskom tripped during planned maintenance.
Energy regulator Nersa has allowed Eskom to raise prices by less than what the embattled company estimates it needs, keeping pressure on its balance sheet while also adding to inflation strains.
With South Africa’s state electricity utility in dire financial straits and straining to meet demand, the government has reverted to courting independent renewable energy producers to help power the economy.