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South Africa should have a surplus of electricity within the next five years.
“This is what we call our ‘new strategy’; that is what we would like to achieve,” Eskom’s chief executive, Brian Molefe, said today.
“The surplus can be used to build the economy or to be sold for revenue in US dollars.”
The surprising announcement came less than a year after South Africa suffered months of load shedding.
An upbeat Molefe said South Africans did not have to worry about load shedding at least until the end of 2016.
“We don’t foresee load shedding for the rest of the year unless something goes terribly wrong, but I don’t see what.”
Molefe and Public Works Minister Lynne Brown addressed the media at Parliament on the Ingula hydropower station in the Drakensberg today.
Brown said Ingula’s Unit 3 was successfully linked to the country’s electricity grid on March 6, a year ahead of schedule.
It had added 333MW of power to the network.
By the end of 2016 all four units (1300MW) of the Ingula scheme should be connected to the network, she said.
Then the country should have more than enough power.
According to Molefe, this didn’t mean that South Africa’s nuclear power plan was superfluous.
“Nuclear is cheap and clean. Even if we have a surplus we will have an opportunity to sell electricity to the rest of southern Africa and generate income so that we can reduce the cost to ordinary citizens. Nuclear is an opportunity to do exactly that, but that is a decision at policy level that will be taken at the right time,” he said.
Brown said it was going well at Eskom, and the electricity supplier’s turnaround strategy was bearing fruit thanks to Molefe’s capable leadership.
Eskom’s financial position was improving, costs had been cut successfully and construction plans were on schedule.
