ELECTRICITY Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has announced that the end of load shedding is near.
He made these remarks during the debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address on Tuesday, 13 February.
"To Tintswalo, as your beloved uncle, I hear your cry, understand your anger and feel your pain due to load shedding. I draw counsel from President Oliver Tambo when he said: 'The end is glorious. It is peaceful. The intervening period is dark and bitter and finds its glory in acts of struggle'.
"I do give you my word: the end of load shedding is indeed in sight. The future is bright, Tinswalo! Tinswalo! Tinswalo," he said.
Tinswalo is a fictional girl who was born in democratic South Africa used by Ramaphosa used to tell how his government has improved people's lives when he delivered his Sona at Cape Town City Hall on Thursday, 8 February.
Ramokgopa said as part of his department’s immediate relief to load shedding in 2023, Units 1-3 at Kusile, which had been out of service since October 2022, were successfully returned ahead of schedule.
He said Unit 5 was synchronised with the grid as planned in December 2023, contributing 800MW of electrical power.
He said 720MW was contracted from January 2024, with 100MW made available to the grid, and a further 316MW was approved for contracting.
"Medupi Unit 4 will return this year in September. Kusile Unit 6 will be synchronised late November 2024. These units will add 1 600MW to the grid. In addition, Koeberg's Unit 2 will return to operation in September 2024, providing us with 980MW after a planned outage. These interventions will feed a further 2 580MW into the grid. The end of load shedding is indeed in sight," Ramokgopa said.
The secretary-general of the ANC, Fikile Mbalula, had made a similar claim in early 2023 that load shedding would end in December of the same year. He has since retracted his claim and said he knew nothing about electricity.
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The minister said during the debate that installed roof-top solar PV capacity in Mzansi had increased from 983MW in March 2022 to 4 412MW in June 2023.
He said since September 2023, planned maintenance increased sharply.
"This meant that while we could have opted for the short-term gain of reducing load shedding, we've since opted for the more enduring approach of increasing planned maintenance.
"This will ensure that the reliability of the fleet will be significantly strengthened by winter of 2024. It also means we can recover up to 2 000MW ahead of the winter demand peak by tapering planned maintenance and increasing available capacity," he said.
He said the electricity ministry will lead the process of establishing an Independent Transmission Projects Office (ITPO) to accelerate procurement, planning and financing for the upgrading, modernisation and expansion of our transmission infrastructure.
"Over the next 10 years, this intervention will attract up to R400 billion of investment in transmission infrastructure," Ramokgopa said.
