Outa urges bold moves on shedding

THE Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) yesterday called on the government to make bold interventions to minimise load shedding by the state-owned power utility.

This as Eskom on Monday unexpectedly began cutting off power supply with stage 4 load shedding after six power generating units tripped.

The power utility yesterday said it would implement stage 3 load shedding and cut up to 3000MW power supply.

Ronald Chauke, Outa’s energy portfolio manager, said entering stage 4 load shedding signalled a dire situation for Eskom’s energy generation and raised major concerns for the economy, adding that clearly there was a serious problem at Eskom.

“Eskom’s ageing power plants require urgent attention to keep the lights on. It would appear that aside from the lack of maintenance over the past years which is catching up with us today, the shortage of skills and expertise to manage, maintain and operate these ageing plants has added to Eskom’s woes,” Chauke said.

He called for urgent intervention, even if this required the importation of international expertise and recalling retired engineers and experts who have the institutional knowledge of these power plants.

“We believe it is time for South Africa to enable and encourage self-generation solutions on a large scale,” Chauke said. “This will in turn reduce pressure on Eskom to meet the country’s demands, which it is clearly struggling to do.”

On Monday afternoon, the Eskom board convened an urgent meeting with the company’s executive management and the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, to discuss ways to deal with load shedding.

The board resolved to institute an urgent review.