Minister of Electricity welcomes developments in generation performance

17 October 2023 - 10:45am

The Minister in The Presidency for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, welcomes developments in Eskom’s generation performance following the return to service of Unit 1 at Kusile Power Station, ahead of schedule.

The return of the unit, which had been out of commission together with units 2 and 3 since August 2022 following safety concerns with the structural integrity of the stack, comes two months ahead of schedule and adds 800MW into the grid.

This marks significant overall improvements to generation performance with Kusile Unit 3, which came back online on 29 September 2023, also returning back to service two months ahead of schedule.

The third of the units (Unit 2) is now expected to similarly return to service in November 2023, whilst Unit 5 will come into commercial operation in December 2023.

The return of the Kusile units represents a critical milestone in our quest to recover South Africa’s economy, protecting jobs, advancing universal access and improving the quality of life.

The Minister remains focussed in bolstering the country's electricity generating capacity by giving accelerated attention to the expansion and strengthening of transmission infrastructure to accommodate new renewable generation capacity.

The Minister congratulates Eskom’s Generation Team for the sterling hard work to bring back stability and credibility to the Eskom generation fleet and reducing the intensity and severity of load shedding.

Statement issued by Tsakane Khambane, The Ministry in The Presidency for Electricity, 17 October 2023