Cape Town - During Eskom’s first media briefing for the year, chairperson of the Eskom board, Mpho Makwana has warned that the country should prepare the for the possibility of permanent load shedding of stage 2 or 3 for the next two years.
This morning Eskom CEO André de Ruyter together with his management team provided an update on current system challenges at Eskom.
The update was initially set to take place last week Monday, but was postponed due to emergency engagements with President Cyril Ramaphosa after his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos was cancelled to deal with the electricity crisis.
Makwana made the statement when he detailed Eskom’s plant performance recovery plan, which was at the final stages of being approved.
This plan was announced in the National Energy Crisis Committee (Neccom) six-month progress update on the implementation of the President Cyril Ramaphosa’s energy action plan.
This comprehensive Generation Recovery Plan identifies six power stations that, with oversight from the new Eskom board and independent experts over the coming months, will get better reliability and availability of its units.
Makwana explained that the execution of the recovery plan required that power stations were given space and headroom to execute the recovery plan.
“This requires either adding additional capacity to create space to do proper maintenance without firefighting, or create some predictability by implementing a permanent stage 2 or 3 for the next two years in order to give sufficient space for maintenance while giving the country a level of predictability or consistency to plan the livelihoods better,” Makwana said.
He said shuttling from one stage to another within a short space of time was not good for the business community.
De Ruyter went into detail and said permanent load shedding of between Stage 2 and Stage 3 would not guarantee that higher stages of load shedding could be ruled out.
"We need to have the option of further stages of load shedding… There are also times when due to the system performing well, and this has happened in the past, where we don’t require load shedding at all and of course if we can prevent load shedding that is first prize but we are not in a position to say that we can maintain a certain stage of load shedding on a continuous basis because of the lack of reliability and predictability of the system, ” De Ruyter said.
Makwana said the reality was that the recovery of Eskom’s coal fleet could not be achieved within a short term and it would take at least two-years to improve the Energy Availability Factor (EAF) from the current 58% to 70%,
“The journey of the turnaround will see a stretch target EAF being driven toward of 60% EAF by 31 March 2023, a mere 10 weeks away, then 65% EAF by 31 March 2024 and 70% by 31 March 2025,” Mokwana said.
Some social media reactions to the news were:
"Stage 4 and 5" is silent. https://t.co/JKX69NKZr1
— 🗿Tracey The Blocked 🏹 (@TraceyManus) January 22, 2023
Ag shame now even the criminals can schedule their cable theft accordingly 🙏🏾 formalization of crime & incompetence ke specialty sa lona vele. https://t.co/BGTyWHZG67
— Thula Sindi (@thulasindi) January 22, 2023
Generators are now, and forever more, essentials of private households and commercial industries. 😤F*ck this entire country's "leadership". F*ck @Eskom_SA . F*ck theft, and corruption. F*ck it all to hell! https://t.co/YT3JP5f3TU