Eskom's plan comes together

On of six plants working productively on the utility’s turnaround strategy.

- Masoka Dube

Maserati Lesolang and her team at Matla Power Station on the Mpumalanga Highveld are one of the reasons that the light at the end of the Eskom load-shedding tunnel has been glowing brighter.

Matla is one of the power stations that has shown a marked improvement in its energy availability factor (EAF), which has bolstered the overall national power supply. That meant load shedding has been suspended for more than 150 days.

Other power plants that have shown improvements are Kriel, Thuthukani, Majuba, Duvha and Kusile.

Lesolang, the general manager of Matla, said the station's EAF had improved from 50% to 69%, following Eskom's March implementation of a "turnaround" strategy across the corporation's production arm.

Matla was one of those poor-performing power stations, but it managed to improve its production capacity.

Lesolang said Matla was almost at its target EAF of 70%.

Although that was good news, energy expert Ruse Moleshe said more still needs to be done to sustain the good performance.