Eskom and CSIR sign development partnership
Eskom and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have signed a partnership. The two state-owned organisations have collaborated to synergise research capabilities, in support of Eskom’s strategic and operational needs.
Eskom’s Group Chief Executive Brian Molefe said, “The partnership will further strengthen our collaborative relationship and‚ accordingly‚ provide a long term platform to perform scientific and operational research and evaluation tasks and provide scientific decision support towards the realisation of Eskom’s strategic and operational needs.”
The agreement covers the next five years. It has proposed to align and enhance interaction between the organisations in support of national goals. The partnership also hopes to create jobs.
“At a high level, we already have a strategy. As I said it starts with looking at the points of pain right now, looking at Eskom’s own strategies, what are their priorities in terms of keeping the lights on, in terms of operation efficiencies, in terms of delivering on their new build fleet that they are working on right now. That is an overarching framework that we’re looking at, and then saying technically what can we contribute in order to support those imperatives,” added Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive of the CSIR.
Eskom has identified three imperatives to address its short-term needs: availability and reliability of the existing asset base, safely delivering on the new build programme and capacity management, and finally, financial sustainability.
Eskom and CSIR also plan to establish a joint Centre of Advanced Manufacturing and Repair Technologies and a National Centre of Expertise for non-destructive testing and evaluation.
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SOURCE: [Times Live]
