Off the wire
• Russia to launch national credit rating agency in 2015  • China Focus: Chinese companies jump on "Belt and Road" wave  • China Voice: Ensuring cyber security an indisputable norm  • Indonesia's financial service supervisory body issues stimulus policies  • Official pronouncements supporting young Chinese  • New Alzheimer's drug shows 4 times more effective than current pill: Australian researchers  • (Recast) China tests new carrier rocket  • Chinese state councilor meets Tajik foreign minister  • Cambodian PM encourages China company to continue investing in Cambodia  • Roundup: Daesh turning from fiction to warring faction in Afghanistan  
You are here: 　 Home

S. African MPs call for urgent action to address load shedding

Xinhua, July 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

South African MPs on Friday called for urgent action to address worsening power outages as a result of a failure to maintain scores of outdated power plants.

Eskom, the country's major electricity provider, must address load shedding so that the country can move to a position of maintenance without load shedding, said a joint statement by the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy and the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises.

The two committees have just concluded a joint oversight visit to interact with Eskom to understand the challenges the company is facing.

The committees were of the view that more needs to be done to address maintenance of the 40 power plants that contribute to planned and unplanned load shedding, the statement said.

Eskom has been blamed for poor maintenance of power plants that have led to constant power outages since November last year.

In order to avoid a total collapse of the national grid, the utility has been implementing load shedding which has become a daily occurrence.

According to an Eskom report, a budget of five billion rand (about 403 million U.S. dollars) has been approved to address maintenance.

But the parliamentary committees expressed concern about the amount of money used for maintenance as it has not yielded the required outcome.

The committees said the presentation indicates that 30 days after maintenance had been completed, 50 percent of the units had to shut down.

The committees noted the power utility's report that the country has energy availability, but the issue currently facing Eskom is load shedding due to maintenance of old power plants.

Eskom is now burning diesel to the value of 1 billion rand (about 80 million U.S. dollars) a month to keep the lights on after coal-burning power units broke down one after another.

The utility has been criticised for paying the high cost of diesel.

The two parliamentary committees urged Eskom to re-negotiate the price.

Furthermore, the committees questioned why Eskom was not sourcing coal from mining companies that it co-owns rather than paying exorbitant amounts to short-term suppliers. Endit