In year to end-March the power utility spent R21bn on the fuel to run the open-cycle gas turbines
PetroSA is building a series of gas-to-power plants to transmit up to 180MW to Eskom's Gourikwa power plant in the Western Cape. Picture: 123RF/TEBNAD
In the previous financial year to end-March 2023, this led to the utility spending more than three times the budgeted amount on diesel. Against an initial budget of R6.1bn Eskom spent R21bn on diesel to run the open-cycle gas turbines . “We remain in consultation with key players such as the national electricity crisis committee, the department of public enterprises, and ministry of electricity. As soon as those consultations are done, we should be able to communicate to the country,” said Makwana.
This was a 123% increase compared with Nersa’s decision in the previous year which reflected, said Tlhotlhalemaje, the need to address load-shedding through the increased use of the diesel-powered generating units. The last system update provided by Eskom in November 2022 predicted a worst-case scenario of 28 days at stage 3 load-shedding in June and July and 23 days of stage 3 load-shedding in August. This forecast was however based on assumption of about 16,000MW of unplanned generation availability and demand of 33,000MW.
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