What most consumers of electricity in South Africa are unaware of is that with an installed capacity of 43 000MW, only 32 000MW is available. Of this 10 000MW the majority is not available due to unplanned maintenance; that is breakdowns.
While the newly appointed CEO at Eskom, Tshediso Matona, was last week performing a classic mea culpa by conceding that Eskom’s woes were self-inflicted, Jacob Zuma was telling the denizens of the Western Cape that Apartheid was culpable for the current crisis. On one point Mr Matona was adamant: Eskom had breached the golden rule of plant maintenance in that it had deferred planned maintenance due to political pressure. Examples cited were the World Cup and the 2014 Elections.