Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa says government will soon convene a summit to discuss solutions to the current electricity challenges facing the country.

Responding to questions for oral reply at the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Wednesday, the Deputy President said Eskom has also deployed its most senior managers to power stations to ensure that plants are managed effectively to avert failure of power plants.

The President said the decision to hold the summit emanated from his meeting with the business sector last week Friday.

The Deputy President said the summit, which will involve business, labour and other affected stakeholders, will discuss the current electricity challenges faced by the country with the aim of coming up with proposals to further assist in addressing the problems.

Government’s energy war room

After a Cabinet meeting in December last year, government established an energy war room to urgently attend to Eskom’s short- and long-term energy challenges at a time when the country was faced with load shedding.

During his State of the Nation Address, President Jacob Zuma announced a five-point plan that would assist the power utility to deal with the energy challenges.

The Deputy President said progress has been made in implementing the five-point plan.

“Progress is being made with all elements of the five-point plan to address the electricity challenge that our country faces at the moment.

“Eskom has taken steps to improve the maintenance and operation of our power stations… including the deployment of senior managers to our power stations.

“It was the process of the war room that a decision was taken that senior managers should be deployed to power stations and that they should not only be at air-conditioned offices in Megawatt Park,” he said.

He also said over and above the announcement by Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown on the successful synchronisation of the Medupi power plant onto the grid, government was also in the process of renewing several cogeneration contracts with the private sector.