R1tn needed to end load shedding, says Eskom's Oberholzer
Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer says the embattled power utility needs almost R1 trillion to bring an end to load shedding.
Oberholzer was speaking at the Agri SA Congress in Pretoria on Thursday.
He says the utility needs an investment of just below a trillion rand to build more distribution and transmission lines.
"Just a trillion rand that needs to be invested. We have to build 8500 kilometres of transmission lines, which I believe will be the most difficult in the next decade and a half.
"We believe we need to put aside R130 billion to build this, over and above the 8500 kilometres, we will need to install about 12 substations.
"Over and above the 8500 kilometres of transmission lines we will need to build 7500 kilometres of distribution lines."
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Oberholzer says in addition to this, nine coal power plants will be retired over the next 15 years due to age and environmental challenges.
"In the decade and a half, we will be retiring nine of the coal fire power plants, so we have 15 of them if you take Kusile and Medupi out the 13 that is left. Nine of those we will retire because of age and environmental challenges that we do have.
"We are going to take half of the capacity in the coal fire power plants off, so the challenge of where were are currently is because we need to think of the future."
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