South Africa’s Eskom CEO sees end to crisis in shift from coal

South African state power utility Eskom sees an opportunity to emerge from years of crisis by shifting from coal-fired power generation towards natural gas and renewables, its chief executive correspondents.

Eskom has implemented power cuts for more than a decade in Africa’s most industrialised nation that have held back economic growth and deterred investment.

It has roughly 400 billion rand ($25 billion) of debt that it services through regular government bailouts.

Eskom operates 15 coal-fired power stations that generate more than 80% of the country’s electricity but regularly break down.

It also runs Africa’s only nuclear power station and a handful of smaller pumped storage, hydroelectric, backup gas plants and a wind farm.

But it is due to shut down about 22,000 megawatts (MW) of coal plants that are reaching the end of their life by 2035, close to half its 46,000 MW of nominal capacity now.

The plan is to replace some of that with gas and renewables, and allow independent power producers to make up the shortfall.