Energy analysts have commended Bheki Nxumalo for agreeing to take the responsibility as Eskom’s new head of generation to resolve elevated levels of power outages on the back of the continued loss of major generation units amidst heightened demand.
Eskom on Friday appointed Nxumalo as group executive generation with immediate effect, nearly a year after Phillip Dukashe resigned from the post in May 2022 for personal reasons after a year in the job.
Following Dukashe’s sudden resignation last year, veteran engineer Thomas Conradie was appointed on an “acting” basis but managed to have an “open-door” policy around issues of generation with the public at Eskom.
Eskom said that Nxumalo will report directly to the acting group CEO Calib Cassim.
Nxumalo’s career in the energy sector spans over 20 years from junior to senior management and executive levels.
Prior to this appointment, he was the CEO of Eskom Enterprise and Eskom Rotek Industries, and has extensive operating, power station management and production experience.
He was the power station manager at two of Eskom’s power stations and the general manager at Kusile power station, and had a brief stint as group executive for generation and group capital.
Eskom approached Nxumalo to consider the role but he took his time to reflect on the request and discussed it with his family and advisors.
Nxumalo thanked his predecessor Conradie for his selfless leadership, saying he was cognisant of the sacrifices one has to make both personally and with family to lead a division like Generation.
He said he was honoured to be asked to lead Eskom Generation at this critical time.
“I literally grew up in Eskom. I strongly believe that Eskom has the technical and managerial capability to turn things around.
“The majority of Eskom employees are passionate about their work and company. I know that I can count on the support of my colleagues in Exco and the new Eskom board to make this a reality.”
Nxumalo inherits a somewhat poisoned chalice as the majority of Eskom’s electricity supply challenges are contained within the generation capacity of the utility.
This comes as Eskom’s engineers at the various power stations were working around the clock over the weekend to bring units back online and at higher efficiencies to prevent higher stages of load shedding.
Apart from other Generation challenges, Eskom said the current situation of Stage 6 load shedding was exacerbated by the loss of four major units which are on extended outages.
Eskom implemented Stage 5 and Stage 6 load shedding over the weekend as breakdowns amounted to 17 093MW of generating capacity.
Nxumalo’s appointment was welcomed by the Organisation undoing Tax Abuse, which wished him all the best, saying “it's a tough job in tough times”.
Independent energy analyst Lungile Mashele said Nxumalo was the right person for the position, but will need a lot of support to do his job well.
“This is well deserved, but it could not happen with André de Ruyter around. He is going to need all the prayers and luck, especially as we head into winter,” she said.
Mashele also noted that the reported “cold war” brewing between the Minister of Electricity and the Minister of Energy was not doing the country any favours in resolving the energy crisis.
“It was always going to come to this, we have long been saying. The contested issue being energy planning,” Mashele said.
“Today was a s***show at the Presidential Climate Commission energy dialogue where again they had to be reminded by the Department of Mineral Resources that their modelling was wrong.”
Nxumalo’s main task will be to drive generation recovery initiatives aimed at preventing the current performance from deteriorating in the short term and improving the overall performance of the generation fleet in the long-term, raising the Energy Availability Factor from the low levels of 55%.
There have been some improvements recently, including several power stations achieving an energy availability of 70% in March as well as the suspension of load shedding on some days.
However, the power system remains under severe pressure and there is a high possibility that load shedding will continue to be implemented at varying stages.
The cold front that was this weekend was anticipated to further increase the demand for electricity, adding to the capacity constraints.
Power Future Lab director and energy analyst Professor Anton Eberhard said Nxumalo’s was one of the toughest and most stressful jobs in South Africa.
“I wonder whether he’ll support private concession or management contracts for some of the power stations - the only hope now to up their performance,” Eberhard said.
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