The Gas Economy Leadership team at SA Oil and Gas Alliance (SAOGA) says Eskom needs to address its old coal-fired power plants that constantly cause blackouts in the country.
Power utility, Eskom is implementing Stage 3 load shedding.
The rolling blackouts started at 2pm on Friday and is expected to last until Monday at 5 o’clock in the morning.
Energy Crisis | Dark weekend ahead as Eskom implements stage 3 load shedding until Monday:
SAOGA Chairperson, Craig Morkel says extending the life of some of the utility’s aging coal-fired power plants will not spare the country from future outages.
“Eskom also needs to take some blame where it’s due, but not this present Eskom. The present team are doing an excellent job under the circumstances, but they’re dealing with old coal-fired power plants.
One could say that Koeberg is also quite old and needed a life extension program to extend the life of Koeberg.
“The coal fleet as we know, most of them have an average age over 40 years. And think of a car that is running for 40 years as much as you might love this car, it is breaking down every time you need to go to work. You’re going to be late for work and it’s the same with our economy. We cannot put an old kit all the time and expect them to operate as if it was new kit,” he adds.
