{"id":769539,"date":"2024-04-25T16:46:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T14:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=769539"},"modified":"2024-04-27T07:39:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T05:39:54","slug":"eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/769539\/eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom&#8217;s monster diesel bill to keep the lights on in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>State-owned power utility Eskom has spent R64.78 billion in the last five years on diesel to&nbsp;power its Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) to plug the electricity generation gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was revealed by Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan in a <a href=\"https:\/\/pmg.org.za\/committee-question\/25490\/\">recent parliamentary response<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The response shows that as load shedding has intensified, so has the amount dipped in from the state coffers, with diesel expenditure for each financial year being:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>2020 &#8211; R5.8 billion;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2021 &#8211; R5.75 billion;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2022 &#8211; R8.6 billion;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2023 &#8211; R21.25 billion;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2024* &#8211; R23.38 billion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that 2024&#8217;s value is a draft and unaudited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom&#8217;s diesel spend for 2023 was far above regulator Nersa&#8217;s capped output for Eskom\u2019s OCGTs, at 1,266 GWh or R8.4 billion, set for the 2023\/24 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"6z9xbjNOeC\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/734993\/eskom-is-on-a-slippery-slope\/\">Eskom is on a slippery slope<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Eskom is on a slippery slope&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/734993\/eskom-is-on-a-slippery-slope\/embed\/#?secret=JZlJbGkoRF#?secret=6z9xbjNOeC\" data-secret=\"6z9xbjNOeC\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Gordhan, Eskom&#8217;s diesel suppliers have been PetroSA, Astron, Shell, BP and Engen. The minister did not disclose how much each company has been getting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom only &#8216;recovered&#8217; R6.5 billion rand of this from Nersa decisions and the Regulatory Clearing Accounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This gap contributes to the need for Government support,&#8221; said Gordhan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Nersa, the breakdown of coal-fired power stations has meant that it has had to increase OCGT&#8217;s load factor considerably, from 1% to 6%, which has subsequently seen increases in Eskom&#8217;s diesel allowance\u2014something that Eskom is known to exceed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DA public enterprises spokesperson Mimmy Gondwa said burning diesel means Eskom has not turned the corner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With this latest revelation, [Electricity] Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa\u2019s claim that Eskom has turned a corner is completely false because burning diesel can never be a permanent solution to the load shedding crisis,&#8221; she said.<\/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\/769139\/load-shedding-will-return-warns-electricity-minister\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Load shedding will return, warns electricity minister<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan has revealed how much Eskom has spent on diesel for its Open Cycle Gas Turbines over the past 5 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":740633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164,1165,19795],"class_list":["post-769539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom","tag-load-shedding","tag-open-cycle-gas-turbines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769539","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769539"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769814,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769539\/revisions\/769814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}