President Jacob Zuma revealed plans that are in motion to deal with the country’s electricity challenges, during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening.

He delivered his speech as Eskom’s power grid remains constrained, with the power utility being forced to implement load shedding in recent times.

“We have developed a plan which involves short, medium term and long term responses.

“As a priority we are going to stabilise Eskom’s finances to enable the utility to manage the current period. In this regard, government will honour its commitment to give Eskom around R23 billion in the next fiscal year,” he said.

Energy constraints hinder economic growth and are also a major inconvenience to economic growth, the President said.

Government’s short-medium energy plan

The President made a plea to all individuals, households, industries and government departments to play their part by saving electricity to avoid load shedding.

An instruction has been issued to all government-owned buildings, through the Department of Public Works, to be energy efficient.

President Zuma said the short and medium term plan involved improving the maintenance of Eskom power stations, enhancing the electricity generation capacity and managing the electricity demand.

“Given the high cost of diesel, Eskom has been directed to switch from diesel to gas as a source of energy for the utility’s generators. Households are also being encouraged to switch from electricity to gas for cooking, heating and other uses,” he said.

He said the construction of three power stations – Kusile, Medupi and Ingula – will add 10 000 megawatts of power to the national grid.

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