40-50 years of underperformance at Eskom due to problems at Kusile and Medupi – Chris Yelland 

Energy expert Ted Blom warned this weekend that loadshedding could haunt South Africa for at least another five years. Blom said he believed it could take Eskom that long to sort out its coal problems and its maintenance backlog. He also mentioned that coal stations in Mpumalanga were operating at 72% capacity, which is expect to drop below 50% within the next year. This was followed by an estimate of another Eskom insider, Mike Rossouw who said that the cost overruns of Medupi and Kusile power stations could run into more than R1trn. Biznews founder Alec Hogg asked energy expert Chris Yelland whether this was an exaggeration and asked him who was to blame for the problems at the all-important Medupi and Kusile power stations. – Linda van Tilburg

Chris Yelland said the Medupi power station has brought Eskom to its knees. He said the bulk of the R450bn debt is completely unsustainable. The debt "is as a result of the cost overruns at Medupi and Kusile. These beautiful projects have actually become the downfall of Eskom, which is really tragic." He said the country could have lived with the huge cost of the construction of something that is fit for purpose, but it seemed clear that this was not the case. There were construction deficiencies and design faults that were going to take enormous amounts of money to fix.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___