Eskom doing its best to manage national grid: Ramokgopa

Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says Eskom is doing its best to manage the national grid as demand for energy increases during winter.

This after the power utility implemented stage two rolling blackouts on Tuesday.

This is due to a combination of factors, including delays in returning generation units from planned maintenance, unexpected capacity losses, and higher-than-expected demand.

Despite this, Ramokgopa says Eskom’s power system is in a significantly stronger position than it was during the same period last year.

He briefed the media in Pretoria on Wednesday.

“We are entering this confidently in that during this winter, we’re going to have the benefit of all of the Koeberg units, at least by July of 2025. We have successfully synchronized Kusile unit number 6 to the grid on the 26th of March.”

“So that’s an additional capacity that we have on the grid – approximately 800 megawatts. We didn’t have the benefit of this 800 megawatts when we entered the winter of 2024. So essentially we’ve got approximately 2500 megawatts of additional capacity,” adds Ramokgopa.