Dan Marokane, whose term started during a streak without power cuts that’ve crimped South Africa’s economy, said the utility needs to intensify its recovery and add clean energy stations.hasn’t implemented load shedding for 79 days, which hit a record last year and would sometimes see businesses and households only have power for half a day. Officials have attributed the steadier power supply to efforts by the utility to improve the reliability of poorly maintained coal-fired power stations.
Fixing Eskom and South Africa’s energy crisis has been a top priority for the government. After slow progress due to multiple delays, efforts including better maintenance of power stations are starting to pay off. A plan to split the utility into generation, transmission and distribution units to make it profitable again is also progressing.Marokane said Eskom has the opportunity to reinvent itself, signalling that the century-old, state-owned monopoly can still thrive amid encroaching privatisation of the power supply. He took over the job in March, occupying a hot seat that’s averaged roughly a new chief executive every year since 2007.