CEO André de Ruyter, his team, and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan briefed Parliament's Public Enterprises Committee on Wednesday.

"We have taken out the equivalent of two major power stations to perform maintenance which has created a capacity tightness, when we have unplanned outages in other units there is then the unfortunate necessity to implement load-shedding," De Ruyter told MPs.

"We anticipate that by the time that the 11 units we have maintained, return to service by April this year, the first wave should be finished by then, that we will be in a position where we can significantly reduce the risk of load-shedding. When the second tranche is completed, we will also see a change to the risk of load-shedding, but it won't be eliminated.”

The power utility told MPs six defects that must be repaired at the Medupi Power Station, will cost R300 million per unit.

De Ruyter added that these defects and the low-quality coal are the reason Eskom experiences low energy capacity which creates the need for load-shedding.

He said the cost of repairs will be shared by Eskom and the supplier.

Jacaranda News