Eskom shortlists candidates for CEO post, launches new load saving plans

Troubled state-owned power utility Eskom has edged closer to appointing a new group CEO for the entity with five candidates on its shortlist, its chairperson Mpho Mokwana said on Monday.

He however did not give any hints on who the shortlisted candidates are, or whether Eskom’s acting group CEO Calib Cassim is in the running.

“We [are] quite advanced in the shortlisting process for the next group chief executive of Eskom, such that we now have a small shortlist of five candidates,” Mokwana told delegates at the inaugural Demand Side Management Indaba.

Eskom, which had initially planned to have appointed a CEO by April following the resignation of André de Ruyter last year and his early departure in February, appointed Cassim to act in the role.

At the time of his immediate departure, Eskom said De Ruyter would not be required to serve the balance of his notice.

He had been with the utility since the end of 2019 and his tenure at Eskom was marred with several detractors, such as the Black Business Council and the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), calling for his resignation on a number of occasions.

Read: Eskom appoints Calib Cassim as acting CEO

Meanwhile, at Monday’s Indaba Eskom launched an electricity demand management programme, which seeks to ease the burden on the national grid and save as much as 1 500 MW of power, according to Cassim.

He said as Eskom focuses on ending load shedding as soon as possible, it needs to do so in a way that does not compromise the integrity of the grid.

Cassim added that managing demand will be crucial over the next six months, when demand peaks.

“Eskom needs to focus on the supply in terms of our own plants, as well as getting the DMRE more capacity from an IPP [Independent Power Producers] perspective. But while we’re looking at supply, let’s not forget the importance of demand side management to close that gap in terms of that capacity shortfall,” he said.

The demand management programme will include various interventions, including amending building codes to energy efficient ones, dealing with traditional geysers and looking at street lighting, said Eskom’s head of distribution Monde Bala.

“We believe that there’s quiet a significant footprint of the traditional geysers that present an opportunity for further savings, and I am talking at a resident level. We believe that in terms of… street lighting, there’s further opportunity to do public lighting in a manner that is energy efficient,” he said.

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Bala added that Eskom is engaging with regulators to fast-track net-billing tariffs and said the utility is looking at deploying smart meters.

Net billing allows a customer to be compensated if their generation is synchronised with the grid, with some of the energy exported.

“[Smart meters are] a key enabler, because with them we can do load management and shift your load to other times of the day… If we are to do more, then we need to make sure that we incentivise the use [of smart meters] for electricity so that we save a bit more,” Bala said.