Ramokgopa shrugs off Eskom burning billions in diesel
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says that South Africans shouldn’t worry about Eskom burning through billions of rands in diesel to keep the lights on, because it’s all part of the plan.
Responding to reports this week that the national power utility is relying on burning diesel to stave off load shedding, the minister said that this is what the diesel generators are there for.
He said that while Eskom admittedly struggled with power supply at the start of the financial year (around April), it has since continued to improve its performance and occasionally has a surplus.
However, when the grid is under strain during peak demand periods, the diesel generators—or “peakers,” as he calls them—are there to help.
“We burn diesel to ensure that we support the grid. The load factor reached about 6% this week,” he said. “We use the peakers when we are experiencing difficulty with the rest of the fleet and when we need to meet demand.”
“Yes, it is not a secret that we experienced significant challenges around April, and we relied on diesel to support us. But this diesel was able to support us because it is meant to support us during periods of difficulty.”
Ramokgopa noted that the 2025 budget for Eskom’s diesel use is about R12 billion, and so far, the utility has spent about R5.8 billion of that.
While this is almost half of the annual allocation, Ramokgopa said it was necessary to burn through the budget to contend with the winter months when demand ramped up.
“What do we do? We call on our Ace card, and we use the peakers to come and help us. They are designed to do that,” he said.
Ramokgopa further justified the diesel burn by pointing out that the same period in 2023 saw Eskom burn through over R14 billion in diesel. The utility is now using a third of that.
“The point I’m making to the general public is that when we burn diesel, we do it because the system is under strain,” he said.
Eskom improvements
Ramokgopa said that, more positively, the system is recovering, which can be seen by the improvement in the energy availability factor (EAF) to around 66%—even hitting 70% on some days.
“In fact, there are periods in the week when we have to put the machines in cold reserve,” he said.
Cold reserve is when Eskom is generating more than the demand, and to protect the grid “we have to pull back some of the machines”.
“We are in that situation. It’s a better situation to be in,” he said. However, he added that the ambition isn’t 65% EAF, but rather 75% or more.
In Eskom’s latest power report, the group noted that the average breakdowns at its power stations over the past week were 10,884MW.
This is well below the 13,000MW threshold it set in its winter forecast, where it said it might need to implement load shedding.
Despite the improvements, the department is not confident enough to declare the end of load shedding. “We are within touching distance of the end of load shedding,” Ramokgopa said.
“I’m sure the country wants to hear me say that load shedding is fully behind us. I can tell you, we are very close to that point. I’ll come back. We will be the first ones to share that with you.”
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