Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has told the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises that loadshedding is an existential problem both in economic and social terms, which requires urgent attention.

Ramakgopa, who is Tshwane former mayor, said the South African economy could be losing up to R1 billion a day depending on the intensity of load shedding. "This is severe. The amount of jobs that have been lost as a result of loadshedding is projected to be upwards of 800,000 just for the current year if you were to go by the modelling that has been done by some of the reputable institutions," he said. He further told Parliament that, "I'm trying to convey the message that we are dealing with a major problem that undermines the overall growth of the South African economy."

Ramokgopa said as a result of this, President Cyril Ramaphosa found it appropriate to provide a comprehensive and compelling response to the crisis by unveiling the Energy Action Plan (EAP) which has about five outcomes that he says are to fix Eskom, improve the availability of existing supply, enable private investment in new generation capacity and accelerate procurement of new capacity from renewables, gas, and battery storage it needs to unleash investment in rooftop solar PV for businesses and households. "So the focus will be on the existing fleet of Eskom coal-fired power stations, a focus on Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, and also the importation of hydro that we are getting from Mozambique, ensuring that first we address the reliability of this unit and reduce the rate of abrupt failure of these units and address their efficiency as they run, then approximate their design capacity," he said. He said there is a significant amount of project pipeline as a result of the reforms that have been introduced on the generation side, which focuses on the private sector and new generation capacity.