LETTER: Eberhard bombshell exposes a general Eskom pylon sloth
Long-promised transmission lines from Upington and Angola have yet to be built
17 January 2023 - 14:50
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An Eskom team at work in the Kouebokkeveld, Western Cape. Picture: SUNDAY TIMES / MARK WESSELS
Anton Eberhard’s riveting article drops the bombshell that his top-level report recommended unbundling of power transmission from the rest of Eskom in 2019 — yet four years later no progress is reported (“Ministers have let Ramaphosa down on unbundling of Eskom”, January 16).
He notes that this proposal actually dates back to the 1998 energy paper. Before 2010 the department of energy also hosted a major investor conference to announce that a 5,000MW solar farm would be built outside Upington.
One question a potential investor raised was: how much transmission capacity does Eskom have from Upington? The investor was assured that the government was building this ASAP.
Yet in 2023 we are told that most of the most recent bids for solar and wind power stations could not be awarded — because Eskom has still not added on the extra transmission capacity required.
More than 20 years ago, Eskom had a land-surveying team in Angola to map out the route for the transmission cables between SA and the site of the proposed Inga 3 dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet neither the transmission cables nor the dam has yet been built. Added to the existing Inga 2 dam it would have removed two stages from the load-shedding now inflicted on us.
Keith Gottschalk Claremont
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Eberhard bombshell exposes a general Eskom pylon sloth
Long-promised transmission lines from Upington and Angola have yet to be built
Anton Eberhard’s riveting article drops the bombshell that his top-level report recommended unbundling of power transmission from the rest of Eskom in 2019 — yet four years later no progress is reported (“Ministers have let Ramaphosa down on unbundling of Eskom”, January 16).
He notes that this proposal actually dates back to the 1998 energy paper. Before 2010 the department of energy also hosted a major investor conference to announce that a 5,000MW solar farm would be built outside Upington.
One question a potential investor raised was: how much transmission capacity does Eskom have from Upington? The investor was assured that the government was building this ASAP.
Yet in 2023 we are told that most of the most recent bids for solar and wind power stations could not be awarded — because Eskom has still not added on the extra transmission capacity required.
More than 20 years ago, Eskom had a land-surveying team in Angola to map out the route for the transmission cables between SA and the site of the proposed Inga 3 dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet neither the transmission cables nor the dam has yet been built. Added to the existing Inga 2 dam it would have removed two stages from the load-shedding now inflicted on us.
Keith Gottschalk
Claremont
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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