Cape Town – South Africa is not out of the woods yet despite having had 26 days without load shedding, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown told a media briefing on Friday.
She was however upbeat because this could be achieved at the same time that Koeberg unit 2 (900 MW) went offline. Medupi unit 6 has however come online, adding 800 MW to the national grid.
The next major milestone in Eskom's build programme is the synchronisation of Ingula unit 3 in February 2016, Eskom’s acting CEO Brian Molefe told media at the briefing on what is happening in SA's War Room.
The coal-fired power station Kusile (800 MW) is expected to come online from August 2017.
READ: LIVE - Inside the War Room
Brown said the game plan has now changed. “Brian Molefe was in for two weeks, when he sent his top management into the power stations. I feel far more confident about the timelines now.”
She said she would like to assure South Africans that the government intends to diversify the energy mix through the integrated resource plan.
Brown said the five-point plan to find solutions to the country’s energy problems was informed by two areas: strategy for immediate and short-term interventions to limit load shedding; and to participate in building new projects, which include gas, coal and other regional projects.
Eskom is playing a developmental role in this strategy, said Brown.