Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has left it to the system operator to decide whether the City of Johannesburg will be exempted from load shedding during the crucial BRICS Summit next week.
Heads of state of BRICS nations, government ministers and private business executives will descend on Johannesburg from Tuesday to attend the first in-person, three-day summit since the outbreak of Covid-19.
The summit comes as power utility Eskom is implementing daily power cuts of two hours at a time to protect the national grid from collapsing due to “long-standing insufficient energy generation capacity” amid rising demand.
The government usually requests the Eskom system operator to exempt the country from load shedding on special occasions, and it was expected this would be the case to avoid a possible embarrassment if international delegates were left in the dark.
Ramokgopa yesterday, however, said load shedding was not a function of events, and there were going to be rotational power cuts for as long as generation did not meet demand.
He said that if there was load shedding on the day announced by the System Operator, the City of Johannesburg would also be expected to make its own contribution to ensuring that it protected the national grid.
“That is why part of the conversation and what is being mounted before the courts is that it’s not always possible to exempt everyone, otherwise you are losing that lever of ensuring that we protect the grid and that lever is load shedding,” Ramokgopa said.
“So if you happen not to (experience) load shedding on the day, it might be (one of) two things. One is that we don’t have load shedding across (the board), Eskom would have announced this so no one will be load shed.
“Or if there is no load shedding at the events of the BRICS, it could be that they are not on schedule as per Johannesburg schedule for that particular area to be load shed.
“I really want to emphasise that the system operator when making the determination on the intensity of load shedding, all that they are looking at is demand and available generation, and everyone must contribute.”
Ramokgopa yesterday was updating the media on the progress made regarding the implementation of the Energy Action Plan and the weekly generation outlook.
He said with generation capacity gradually improving and the demand decreasing due to slightly warmer weather conditions, the logical approach was to keep up with the maintenance of units.
However, Ramokgopa said though the Energy Availability Factor was comfortably averaging above 60%, this was because of certain power stations “carrying a disproportionate amount of the weight” while others were still dragging generation down.
Ramokgopa said Medupi power station was the best performing at 88% generation capacity in July, followed by Lethabo at 86%, Matimba at 72%, Camden at 66%, Duvha at 62% and Majuba at 60%.
The minister said Tutuka still remained the least performing power station in Eskom’s generation fleet at 13% in July, followed by Kusile at 19%, and Grootvlei and Hendrina at 27%, respectively.
“We are initiating interventions to work with the teams there. We have given them our stamp of approval and we are working with them to ensure that we improve the performance of these power stations,” he said.
“(Eskom head of generation) Bheki Nxumalo takes it to even a granular level and asks which of these units are under-performing and what are the technical areas that require attention, and he is able to summon the necessary capacity and expertise to resolve that precise problem.”
Meanwhile, Eskom yesterday implemented Stage 3 load shedding as unplanned breakdowns were at 16 547MW of generating capacity, while 4 507MW generating capacity was out of service for planned maintenance.
Eskom said the delay in returning to service a generating unit at Kendal and two generating units at Tutuka power stations was contributing to the current capacity constraints.
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