State-owned electricity producer Eskom has re-launched its weekly system status report as part of broader efforts to rebuild trust with South African citizens, who remain skeptical about the utility’s ability to keep the lights on.

The service, which is now available on Eskom’s website, was discontinued during Brian Molefe’s controversial tenure as CEO of the utility.

The report provides a weekly view of energy sent out, peak demand, performance of generating units in terms of the energy availability factor, as well as the outlook for the coming three-month horizon.

The launch was held at Eskom National Control, in Germiston, and was attended by Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza and newly appointed CEO Phakamani Hadebe.

Gordhan said the reintroduction of reporting service should be seen as part of efforts to increase transparency at the organisation, which had, in recent years, become synonymous with corruption, weak governance and inefficiency.

The Minister said transparency was critical not only for rebuilding Eskom’s reputation, but also for ensuring accountability, without which malfeasance and bad governance flourished.

Eskom system operator Bernard Magoro said the reporting platform would provide citizens with an up-to-date snapshot of electricity supply and demand, while offering some insight into what was involved in balancing the power system for every second of every day.

Magoro said the prognosis for the high-demand winter period was positive and that, unless there was a catastrophic event, no load-shedding was foreseen.

Eskom also noted that its latest medium-term system adequacy outlook report, published in October 2017, showed that the system has enough generation capacity to meet expected electricity demand over the five years to 2022.

The reports can be found at: http://www.eskom.co.za/Whatweredoing/SupplyStatus/Pages/SupplyStatusT.aspx