https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / News / All News RSS ← Back
Africa|Building|Coal|Eskom|Power|Storage|Turbines|Turbines
Africa|Building|Coal|Eskom|Power|Storage|Turbines|Turbines
africa|building|coal|eskom|power|storage|turbines-company|turbines-person
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

Ramokgopa to fight outages with diesel

Close

Embed Video

Ramokgopa to fight outages with diesel

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa
Photo by Bloomberg
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa

25th April 2023

By: Bloomberg

SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

South Africa’s electricity minister proposed a plan to stave off deeper power cuts by increasing the use of diesel turbines along with building more storage capacity to store the fuel.

State-owned utility Eskom Holdings will need to increase its budget for diesel, Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said, according to a copy of a presentation seen by Bloomberg. A special dispensation could reduce the cost by allowing Eskom to directly purchase the fuel, the plan showed.

Advertisement

The strategy would result in the increased use of fossil fuels to mitigate electricity shortages in the most industrialized nation on the continent. In the worst case scenario, South Africa could reach stage 8 power cuts, meaning 8,000 megawatts would be cut, according to the presentation to the governing African National Congress’ national executive committee.

Diesel turbines running at maximum capacity can insulate the nation from two stages, about 2 000 MW, of power cuts, the presentation showed.

Advertisement

Ramokgopa is also asking for the extended use of coal-fired units set for decommissioning over the next few years. An update of the schedule to shut stations down must be approved by cabinet by the end of June.

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options

Email Registration Success

Thank you, you have successfully subscribed to one or more of Creamer Media’s email newsletters. You should start receiving the email newsletters in due course.

Our email newsletters may land in your junk or spam folder. To prevent this, kindly add newsletters@creamermedia.co.za to your address book or safe sender list. If you experience any issues with the receipt of our email newsletters, please email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za