Cape Town – Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has revealed that challenges in operating aging coal-fired power stations will lead to rolling blackouts during the festive season in South Africa.
The minister made this announcement during an oversight visit to Medupi and Matimba power stations on Thursday.
Despite efforts to increase power generation capacity to 7000 megawatts, the reliability of these units remains a concern.
“We are going to ramp up units to 7000 megawatts, but we are retaining a lot of these units. So, we see a situation of a festive season of extremely low levels of load shedding and there will be days where there is no load shedding.
[WATCH] “We are extending the life of the Koeberg Power Station. We want to extend it by about 20 years.”- Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan. #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/vxTAGgDBcI
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) November 19, 2023
“But I think what is important is for us to prepare for a situation where the demand is intensified, that’s why we are working very hard – as we go and retain these units they become more reliable and we are working on another generation capacity,” SABC quoted Ramokgopa as saying.
He said that electricity demand is expected to decrease in December due to the closure of major factories.
“December the energy intensity units like the big factories are going to close so what that means is that demand goes down.
“Then we use this opportunity for maintenance,” he said, according to eNCA.
“Load-shedding is not gone and that is the point I keep on making.”
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
