By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
A fire broke out at Unit 2 of the Duvha power station in Mpumalanga on Monday morning, Eskom has confirmed.
In a statement, Eskom said the fire had been extinguished quickly and no injuries to staff had been reported.
The extent of the damage was still being assessed.
No further details were given, except to say that the unit had been offline for a general overhaul since January this year.
The cause of Monday’s fire at Duvha is still unknown.
Meanwhile load shedding can be stopped by 2024, but that will require strong leadership from the presidency to see that extraordinary interventions on many fronts are implemented without any delay, says think tank Meridian Economics.
This includes lifting the licensing exemption for generation plants from 100MW to 1000MW.
It says that without any intervention load shedding will likely increase up to four-fold in 2023, compared with 2021, up to five-fold in 2024 and up to ten-fold in 2026.
Meridian Economics’s suggested solution includes a drastic escalation of wind and solar energy, changes in the tariff regime to incentivise owners of distributed generation to push excess energy into the grid, and the removal of stumbling blocks in current government procurement from independent power producers (IPPs).
Meridian, led by respected energy expert Dr Grove Steyn, is releasing two reports (‘Resolving The Power Crisis’) that explains its research and proposals on Monday, June 13.