🔒 Chris Yelland: Back story to Mabuza resignation – and how to fix Eskom mess
Chris Yelland in full voice is even more forthright than Chris Yelland the writer. And in this interview, he pulls no punches about the Eskom mess.
Chris Yelland in full voice is even more forthright than Chris Yelland the writer. And in this interview, he pulls no punches about the Eskom mess.
“Eskom is not too big to fail – it has already failed. The issue now is how we deal with this.” – Chris Yelland.
It has become a recurring refrain in South Africa; another state-owned enterprise in trouble with barely enough funds to pay their staff looking for a government bailout.
Energy expert Chris Yelland unpacks what went wrong in the latest loadshedding schedule imposed on electricity users and concludes that it is “the stuff of nightmares.”
Energy analyst, Chris Yelland says there is evidence already in the coal export industry of decline and the industry should start preparing for a future without coal.
Eskom, South Africa’s electricity provider and the state enterprise that is arguably the biggest drag on the economy, is about to undergo a radical overhaul.
Eleven years after construction started on Eskom’s massive 4,800MW Kusile coal-fired power station in Mpumalanga province, South Africa, not one of its six 800MW generator units is currently delivering power into the grid.
Such drafts (IRP) should be apolitical, techno-economic studies, with the former best left to Nedlac and parliament, Yelland stresses.
Unless Eskom gets the tariff hike they’re asking for, the power utility will have to ask government for another R83bn in three to five years’ time, says its new CFO.
Chris Yelland, investigative editor of EE Publishers, unpacks how Eskom’s technical travails are impacting on its woeful bottom line.