Energy Expert Vally Padayachee says Eskom needs to bring the country into its confidence following reports of a R3.6 billion diesel spend in just 30 days.
Action SA has raised concerns over the utility’s spending, describing it as an “unaffordable illusion” masking the country’s ongoing electricity crisis.
Eskom’s 2024 data shows that diesel-powered generation through Open-Cycle Gas Turbines costs R6 579 per megawatt-hour, compared to R541 for coal and R113 for nuclear.
Professor Padayachee echoes ActionSA’s view, stressing that load shedding has not truly ended.
“At the moment, the planned outage is quite high, it’s about 12% – that will decrease as we get to May and the energy availability factor is too low. I presume there are a number of forced outages. So given that situation, there was a requirement for Open-Cycle Gas Turbines to be generated and and of course, there are diesel-fired gas turbines and that’s where the huge cost is.”
