South Africans blowing out the candles as Eskom turns 100
Power utility Eskom marked its 100th birthday on Wednesday amid the worst bout of load shedding in South African history.
South Africans have suffered through more than 100 consecutive days of planned power cuts as Eskom struggles with the constant breakdowns of generating units.
The energy crisis, which has been declared a state of disaster by government, has led to the closing down of small businesses and the disruption to other services such as the provision of water.
The power utility’s centenary comes a week after the government announced it will give it a R254 billion debt relief package, which it hopes will free up cash for Eskom to do more maintenance.
Energy expert Chris Yellend says it’s important to remember that Eskom drove the electrification of the country’s industries, municipalities and mining sector.
“Eskom’s role for a long time was drive the electrification of industry, particularly the mining industry and it did this very successfully at the time. At the time it was a bulk supplier of electricity leaving the individual supply of electricity to municipalities to serve communities.”
Yellend says Eskom’s ‘electricity for all’ campaign was another major success story, and resulted in the connection of some 80% of the country to the grid.
“In about 1992, Eskom embarked on a programme called ‘electricity for all’. The purpose of this was in anticipation of the government to come in 1994 to start seeing Eskom serving a wider population not just industry and municipalities. So, it was a very successful campaign that raised the level of electrification to where it is today, at about 80% which in the African context is very high.”
He says the power utility was once seen as one of the best in the world.
“I think the other achievement is the establishment of a national transmission grid that covers the whole of South Africa and it’s a well-performing grid at the moment, although it has been somewhat neglected over the past years.”
Yellend says Eskom needs to be fundamentally restructured to become a modern utility.
“Eskom is fundamentally still structured exactly the same way it was set up a 100 years ago…to make it fit for purpose in the modern world because things have changed drastically since they were 100 years ago.”
