{"id":720520,"date":"2023-09-23T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=720520"},"modified":"2023-09-22T16:12:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T14:12:51","slug":"the-state-of-eskom-after-andre-de-ruyter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/720520\/the-state-of-eskom-after-andre-de-ruyter\/","title":{"rendered":"The state of Eskom after Andre de Ruyter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Eskom\u2019s performance has deteriorated significantly after former CEO Andre de Ruyter\u2019s departure and the appointment of Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On 22 February, Eskom announced that De Ruyter had left the power utility with immediate effect following a special board meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement followed an explosive interview in which De Ruyter exposed widespread crime and corruption at Eskom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said there is knowledge and support of corruption at the highest levels of the ruling party and the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon afterwards, on 6 March 2023, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the new Minister in the Presidency for Electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa said Ramokgopa\u2019s primary goal will be to drive the government\u2019s programme to significantly reduce the \u201cseverity and frequency of load shedding as a matter of urgency\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new electricity minister also had to expedite the government\u2019s work to ensure the full implementation of the Energy Action Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In May, Ramaphosa promised that the end of load-shedding \u201cshould be in sight soon\u201d, with its severity reducing in the short term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In August, he doubled down on his promise, saying the government is doing great work to fix Eskom and the energy crisis and that load-shedding will end by 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has been six months since Ramokgopa\u2019s appointment and De Ruyter\u2019s departure, making it a suitable period to assess the progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three core measurements from the data which Eskom provides to assess its performance \u2013 the system outlook, load-shedding, and the energy availability factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These factors all declined since De Ruyter left the power utility and Ramokgopa was appointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It should be noted that Ramokgopa inherited a poorly functioning Eskom, which will take a long time to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decline in these factors started in 2019 and continued during De Ruyter\u2019s tenure as Eskom&#8217;s chief executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, it shows that Ramokgopa has been unable to stem the decline in Eskom\u2019s performance, which was what Ramaphosa promised when he appointed the new electricity minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>System outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, Eskom\u2019s system status report warned of severe electricity generation shortages for the next year \u2013 the worst outlook it has ever produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom\u2019s 2023 Week 36 system status report\u2019s 52-week outlook forecasts that electricity demand will be much higher than available generating capacity for every week of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the first time that Eskom\u2019s planned risk level and likely risk scenario are all red. It is essentially a warning of severe load-shedding for at least the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The image below shows how the 52-week outlook changed over the last six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/1-9.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31430\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Load-shedding<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A moving load-shedding stage average revealed that the year-on-year load-shedding severity has increased since De Ruyter left and Ramokgopa was appointed as electricity minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The average year-on-year load-shedding stage increased from 1.94 in 2022 to 2.64 in 2023 under Ramokgopa\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another way to look at it is that South Africa did not have a single day without load-shedding from April 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The image below,&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/loadshed.theoutlier.co.za\/\">courtesy of The Outlier and Eskom se Push<\/a><\/strong>, shows the increased load-shedding in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/1-10-1024x630.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31439\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Energy availability factor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The energy availability factor (EAF) shows the percentage of time the power station was available for use when it was needed. It is a core measure of performance for any power utility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom\u2019s EAF has experienced a noticeable deterioration since Ramokgopa was appointed as minister. It declined from 60% in 2022 to 55% in 2023 under Ramokgopa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/3-1024x523.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30715\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This article was first published by <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/energy\/31429\/eskom-collapse-after-andre-de-ruyter-departure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Daily Investor<\/strong><\/a> and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/720446\/new-load-shedding-stages-for-south-africa-about-to-take-a-step-closer-to-reality\/\">New load shedding stages for South Africa about to take a step closer to reality<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telling signs that power utility Eskom is struggling after the departure of former CEO Andre de Ruyter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":651905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164,853],"class_list":["post-720520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720532,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720520\/revisions\/720532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}