A group of international experts, commissioned by National Treasury, have recommended that power stations be shut down and fixed properly ‘immediately’ – even if that means higher levels of load shedding.

A failure to break the negative cycle Eskom's power stations have been trapped in, the experts warned, could cause power plants to collapse further and much worse generation capacity losses, News24 reports.

The group of leading experts spent five months in the country visiting each power station and meeting with Eskom officials.

The delegation, called the VGBE Consortium, was made up of experts from companies including Dornier, KWS, RWE and Steag; each company boasting formidable experience in power generation.

They have named the document the OPERA Report.

VGBE Energy E is the international technical association of energy plant operators that has 437 members in 32 countries, 90% in Europe.

‘National Treasury commissioned the independent assessment of all Eskom coal-fired power stations to obtain an in-depth understanding of their operational challenges. It is hoped that the findings and recommendations will assist in strengthening Eskom's corporate plan and continue to support the turnaround at Eskom,’ a media statement accompanying the report reads.

It was handed over to Treasury and the Finance Minister in September 2023.

The report is an independent and highly technical view of the issues that plague the country's power stations.

Among the most important is a fixation on one metric – Energy Availability Factor (EAF) – a ‘dead end’ that ‘leads to poorer plant performance’.

‘Outage and maintenance activities have been deferred over the past months and years to lift – or at least to maintain – the EAF,’ the report reads.

It added: 'It must be stopped immediately by executing proper maintenance and outage work – even if this means a higher level of load shedding for a limited period of time.'

Full News24 report