UPDATE 1-South African ministers debate power crisis as outages persist

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Friday press his energy and state companies ministers for ways to solve a crisis that will force Africa's most industrialised economy into a ninth day of power cuts.

His cabinet meets as struggling state utility Eskom said it would cut up to 2,000 MW of power from the national grid. The power crisis, which has dented economic output this year, is one of the biggest challenges faced by Ramaphosa.

Eskom is choking under a massive 450 billion rand ($30.6 billion) debt burden and struggles to meet electricity demand because its creaking coal-fired power stations haven't been maintained properly. Ramaphosa, a former union leader turned millionaire businessman, came to power nearly two years ago and pledged to fix ailing state firms and reverse years of mismanagement and stagnation.

But he has found it hard to overhaul Eskom and lift the country's growth rate due to entrenched opposition to his reforms. Ramaphosa said on Wednesday that Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and state companies minister Pravin Gordhan would present proposals on solving the power crisis to cabinet on Friday.

Some of those proposals include fast-tracking applications of businesses seeking to generate their own electricity, bringing in temporary generators and connecting renewable energy projects to the grid sooner than initially planned. Eskom has said the country needs an additional 5,000 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity for it to have a large enough safety margin to do proper maintenance on its power stations.

As of 0430 GMT on Friday, Eskom had almost 12,000 MW of unplanned breakdowns, versus its nominal capacity of around 44,000 MW. Power cuts are expected to ease from the middle of next week, as many local businesses shut down before the Christmas and New Year public holidays. ($1 = 14.7075 rand)