Eskom needs to find an additional 3 000 Megawatts of power in order to maintain power plants without implementing load shedding, according to the utility’s newly appointed acting CEO Brian Molefe.

Moefe said this when the Eskom Board, led by acting Chairperson Dr Ben Ngubane, appeared before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises on Wednesday to give an update on governance and operational challenges of Megawatt Park.

“We have a maintenance backlog due to commitments made to ‘keep the lights on’ and this has led to deteriorating power station availability and subsequent load shedding.

“We however need a minimum of 3 000 Megawatts and a maximum of 5 000 Megawatts buffer either through supply-side or demand-side options in order to close the backlog within three to five years and avoid load shedding,” he said.

The briefing comes after the power utility was, in recent times, faced with several challenges at governance and power plant level that saw several board members being suspended pending an independent inquiry, while load shedding caused an inconvenience to business and residential customers.

Molefe said governance issues had since been resolved at the parastatal and that they were awaiting the conclusion of the inquiry on the suspended executives to give an update at a later stage.

Molefe said Eskom was currently doing a financial assessment to see how much it would need to get the additional 3 000 Megawatts, and whether it would raise the funds through a tariff increase or through borrowing.