Andre De Ruyter Salary At Eskom
Andre De Ruyter Salary At Eskom
Eskom is the largest electricity supply company in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. It was established in 1924 as South African Electricity Supply Corporation (SAESC). In 2008, it was re-branded to Eskom. The company provides electricity to both domestic and industrial customers.
The current CEO of Escom is Phakamani Hadebe who took over from Tshediso Matona who resigned after being implicated in a major corruption scandal.
Andre De Ruyter was appointed as interim CEO at Eskom on 19 November 2018. He replaced Matshela Koko who resigned after being implicated in another corruption scandal. Andre De Ruyter will hold this position until a permanent replacement is found for him.
According to his LinkedIn page, he has been working with Eskom since 2006 where he served as Managing Director of Distribution from 2016-2018 before taking over as interim CEO.
Andre De Ruyter Salary At Eskom
Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom represents South Africa in the Southern African Power Pool. The utility is the largest producer of electricity in Africa,[2][3] and was among the top utilities in the world in terms of generation capacity and sales, but has since slipped in both categories. It is the largest of South Africa’s state owned enterprises. Eskom operates a number of notable power stations, including Matimba Power Station and Medupi Power Station in Lephalale, Kusile Power Station in Witbank, Kendal Power Station, and Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in the Western Cape Province, the only nuclear power plant in Africa.
The company is divided into Generation, Transmission and Distribution divisions, and together Eskom generates approximately 95% of electricity used in South Africa, amounting to ~45% used in Africa,[4] and emits 42% of South Africa’s total greenhouse gas emissions.[5][6][7][8] By releasing 1.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the air in 2019, Eskom is also the largest emitter of sulfur dioxide in the power industry in the world.[9] In 2019, it was announced that Eskom was to be split up into three distinct nationally owned entities due to huge debts and poor reliability of supply.[10]
At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, a deal was announced for rich countries to fund South Africa’s transition from coal power to renewable energy. However, employment in the mining sector threatens this transition.[11]
Contents
1 History
1.1 First expansion period: 1960-1994
1.2 Post-1994 election period: 1994-2007
1.3 Energy crisis and second expansion: 2007-present
1.4 Logos
2 Restructuring efforts
2.1 Transmission
2.2 COSATU response
2.3 Job losses
3 Installed capacity
3.1 Subscribers
3.2 Fossil fueled power stations
3.3 Renewable and nuclear power stations
3.4 Future projects
3.5 Investment in renewables
3.5.1 South Africa’s integrated resource plan
3.5.2 Investment in renewables, hydro, wind, solar
4 Corporate affairs
4.1 Financials
4.1.1 Debt
4.1.1.1 Chinese debt
5 Controversies
5.1 Municipal debts
5.1.1 Soweto
5.2 Zimbabwe Power Exports
5.3 Power shortage: 2007 – ongoing
5.3.1 Sabotage
5.4 2017 corruption scandal
5.5 Price increases
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
History
The Congella Power Station completed in 1928 was one of the first power plants built and owned by Eskom.
Prior to the establishment of Eskom, the provision of electricity was dominated by municipalities and private companies. The city of Kimberley was one of the first users of public electricity when it installed electric streetlights in 1882 to reduce crime at night.[12]: 5 [13] This was followed by Cape Town in 1895 with the construction of the Graaff Electric Lighting Works to power 775 street lights.
Eskom was founded by the Electricity Act of 1922 which allowed the South African Electricity Control Board to appoint Hendrik Johannes van der Bijl as chairman.[14] The company changed its name by combining the two acronyms in its previous name (ESCOM and EVKOM) in 1987 to become known as Eskom.
The Electricity Act stated that Eskom could only sell electricity at cost and was exempted from tax with the firm initially raising capital through the issuing of debentures, later issuing state-guaranteed loans instead. The coal-fired Congella Power Station in Durban and Salt River Power Station in Cape Town were the first power stations built by Eskom, both complete in mid-1928.[15]
One of Eskom’s first power plants was a coal-fired 128 MW station in Witbank, completed in 1935 to provide power to the mining industry. The plant was built and run in partnership with the privately owned Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company, which owned a number of other power plants across the country. Thanks to state support, Eskom was able to buy out the Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company in 1948 for £14.5 million (roughly equivalent to £2.55 billion in 2017). Following World War 2, South Africa experienced power shortages that led to Eskom negotiating power saving agreements with the mining industry in June 1948.[12]: 6
First expansion period: 1960-1994
Arnot Power Station completed in 1975 was one of the first of the “six-pack” coal-fired power plants built during this period that Eskom was well known for.
From 1960 to 1990 Eskom increased its installed power production capacity from 4,000 MW to 40,000 MW so as to keep up with rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 70s.[12]: 4 During the same period, Eskom established a nationwide 400 kV power network. During this period the company built a number of large standardised coal-fired power plants that could produce power at very low cost due to the large economies of scale. These plants were known colloquially as “six-packs” for the 6 large generator units they were designed to accommodate.[12]: 7
In 1974 the company was instructed to start work on Koeberg nuclear power station to both provide power to Cape Town and help facilitate the South African government’s nuclear program.[12]: 7
In 1981 Eskom was involved in one of its first large financial scandals when its Assistant Chief Accountant was caught embezzling R8 million from the company[12]: 7 (equivalent to roughly R164.37 million in 2018).[16]
During the 1970s the company controversially sought to increase electrical tariffs to help pay for its large expansion plans. Due to its financial situation, the government appointed Dr. W.J. de Villiers to chair a commission that recommended a number of financial and organisational changes for the company to adopt. This led to the company abandoning its no-profit objective and to raise funds by taking out international loans. The number of Eskom employees was also reduced from 66,000 to 60,000 in the late-1980s.[12]: 8
Post-1994 election period: 1994-2007
Following democratic elections in 1994 and the start of the Mandela government the company changed focus to electrification of previously neglected residential homes and to provide low cost electricity for economic growth. Following the passing of the 1998 Eskom Amendment Act government’s powers to influence company policy and investment decisions were greatly expanded.[12]: 8–9 Due to the South African government’s attempted privatisation of Eskom in the late 1990s during the administration of President Thabo Mbeki, Eskom requests for budget to build new stations were denied. After leaving the presidency, Mbeki would later state in December 2007 that this was an error, resulting in adverse affects for the South African economy.[17]
Construction work on the Medupi (pictured) and Kusile coal-fired power stations was started in the 2007-2019 period as part of Eskom’s capacity expansion program following the energy crisis.
Energy crisis and second expansion: 2007-present
See also: South African energy crisis
In January 2008, Eskom controversially introduced “load shedding” – planned rolling blackouts based on a rotating schedule, in periods where short supply threatened the integrity of the grid. Demand-side management has focused on encouraging consumers to conserve power during peak periods in order to reduce the incidence of load shedding. Following the national power shortage in 2007, Eskom embarked on an aggressive electricity production expansion programme during the administration of President Jacob Zuma. The Zuma administration decided to focus expansion efforts on building additional large scale six-pack coal-fired power plants.[18]
In 2016, Eskom stated it intended to pursue a nuclear solution to the country’s energy shortage. According to projections from late 2016, the use of nuclear power would provide over 1000GW of power by 2050. In preparation, the company launched a training program for 100 technicians, engineers and artisans that would certify them as nuclear operators.[19] In January 2018, Eskom’s acting chief financial officer stated that the company could not afford a new build, following a 34% drop in interim profits due to declining sales and increasing financing costs. The government stated it would proceed with the plan but more slowly.[20]
In 2017, Eskom was the focus of a major corruption scandal involving the Gupta family and the administration of then President Jacob Zuma.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa denied an application by Eskom to increase electricity tariffs by a future 19.9% for the financial year 2018/19. The regulator instead granted a 5.2% increase and gave a list of reasons for the refusal to grant higher tariffs that the South African newspaper Business Day stated painted “a picture of inefficiency, inaccurate forecasting and cost overruns” at the power utility. Part of the refusal was the finding that Eskom had 6,000 more employees than needed, costing the company R3.8 billion annually.[21]
In February 2019, shortly after the announcement by government that the company would be broken up, Eskom initiated another round of emergency load shedding. Eskom stated that the 2019 load shedding was initiated due to breakdowns at power stations as well as the depletion of water and diesel resources. Other reasons cited included legacy issues from state capture corruption, coal availability, and that new power plants such as Medupi and Kusile were not yet operational.[22][23] Corruption during the Zuma administration had been noted as a major factor in the cost overruns and long delays in completing Medupi and Kusile power plants that had a knock-on effect leading to the 2019 power shortages.[23] The power shortage and related troubles at Eskom was blamed as a significant contributing factor to a 3.2% decline in GDP growth in the first quarter of 2019,[24] prompting fears of a recession in 2019.[25] Between March and July 2020 the power supply was stable due to reduced demand during the COVID-19 lockdown,[26] but on 12 July a new round of level 2 load shedding began due to the breakdown of generating units.[27]
Logos
Eskom’s logo has been an integral symbol of the company since its founding. For a brief period in 1986 Eskom had no logo when it was moving away from the company’s original logo of stylised letters spelling “ESC” within a circle to the more contemporary version with a blue shield with a stylised lightning bolt in its center. The 1987 logo was replaced in 2002 with its current logo that replaced the shield with a circle but otherwise kept the logo as it was.
