Eskom Must Have Enough Electricity To Support the South African Economy

• The Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, said the country must have enough electricity to sustain its economy
• He spoke while outlining the energy plan implementation on 23 December 2024 and gave an update on the country's reserves
• South Africans questioned the presence of load reduction in the country despite the energy supply

With nine years of experience, Tebogo Mokwena, a Briefly News current affairs journalist, provided insights into infrastructure challenges and state-owned enterprises in South Africa at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News.

JOHANNESBURG — The minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, revealed on 23 December 2024 that Eskom needs sufficient electricity for the country's economy.

Eskom's 2024 achievements

Ramokgopa, who was voted the Person of the Year, outlined the SOE's implementation of the Energy Action Plan. Eskim revealed it achieved the most prolonged uninterrupted electricity supply in five years. Its unplanned capacity loss factor improved from 33.1% to 24.9%. Unplanned outages in the last seven days averaged 668MW compared to 12312 MW in the same period the previous year.

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Plans for 2025

Eskom plans to restore Medupi 4 after a long term of forced outages. Kusile 5 is also expected to be resorted to commercial operation, and Kusile 6 should be synchronised with the grid. Eskom also aims to ensure that it successfully implements Koeberg's two-steam generator projects.

Eskom also aims to successfully roll out KRN2 prepaid meters to 7,2 million customers, reducing zero buyers by 400,000 between January and February 2025. Eskom launched a meter upgrade drive in May, and customers were given until December to upgrade their meter boxes. The deadline was extended to the following year.

South Africans weigh in

Netizens on Facebook weighed in on the electricity needed to sustain the economy.

Lindsay Kluyts said:

"We used to have enough capacity to supply SA and 65% of the African continent. So what went wrong?"

Sandra Cunningham said:

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"Don't worry. With your hefty increases, a majority won't be able to afford electricity, so you should have plenty."

Adelaide Adelaide said:

"You only realise this now. This had to be planned 30 years ago."

Eskom celebrates over 200 days without loadshedding

In a related article, Briefly News reported that Eskom celebrated 261 days without loadshedding in December. The country last experienced loadshedding in March.

The state-owned enterprise also announced that it has saved over R16 billion in diesel costs since implementing its energy action plan. Illegal connections still burden the system, though.

Source: Briefly News