Eskom CEO calls for careful South African coal transition

The Arnot power station in Mpumalanga, South Africa, is a coal-fired power plant operated by Eskom. (Image by Gerhard Roux, Wikimedia Commons)

South Africa needs to be careful when shifting from coal-fired power generation because the fuel is the “aorta” of the economy, the chief executive of the country’s state power company said on Thursday.

“We shouldn’t rush into this thing in an unstructured way, we should plan carefully,” Eskom Chief Executive Andre de Ruyter told a mining conference. “So let’s do this carefully, let’s do it deliberately, but let’s do it.”

South Africa aims to cut coal’s share of the energy mix to less than 60% by 2030 from around 75% now while increasing the share of wind and solar power to around 25%.

(By Alexander Winning and Helen Reid; Editing by David Goodman)

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