Briefing parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises on the performance of stateowned entities‚ Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown said the power utility had posted a R4.6-billion profit but faced some challenges‚ particularly as South Africa continues to generate excess electricity capacity and moves towards greener energy.
Brown said policy decisions such as the independent power producers programme – in which Eskom is obliged to buy power from small producers at a much bigger cost than coal generation – had the ability to crash its balance sheet within the next 20 years.
Eskom currently spent around 35c to create one kilowatt of energy from its coal stations‚ and had committed to paying R2.05 per kilowatt in the first bid window for independent power producers.
In addition to costing more‚ IPP agreements would also contribute to excess capacity, she said.
Eskom was already generating excess capacity of around 4 000MW on any given day and take or pay agreements with IPPs committed the government to pay for energy even when it was not necessary‚ as was currently the case, Brown said.
