Load shedding made its return yesterday after a festive season reprieve as experts said while there had been some improvement in energy capacity compared with the same time last year, it was not enough to see the end of the scheduled power cuts.
Eskom announced yesterday that with its current intensified maintenance aimed at improving the fleet performance, it had a setback of three generating units (2 148 megawatts) not coming back online as anticipated.
“This, coupled with a loss of six generating units (3 113MW), and projected increase in electricity demand, requires Stage 2 load shedding to be implemented from 5am on Tuesday (yesterday) until 4pm, followed by Stage 3 load shedding until 5am on Wednesday. This pattern of Stage 2 load shedding in the morning and Stage 3 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice.”
Professor Wikus van Niekerk, dean of Engineering at Stellenbosch University, said the return to load shedding indicates Eskom has a large number of “unplanned outages” or units not producing electricity because of breakdowns.
“Eskom bases their planning on predictions. Their models showed that there will be an increase in demand and that they will not be able to service the load due to 16 231MW unplanned outages and 8 451MW planned outages, which may be a new record for Eskom with so many units out of service.”
Van Niekerk added that while Eskom has not published the Energy Availability Factor (EAF) for the past two weeks, it appeared that their capacity is very low.
“They are not off to a good start with the large number of breakdowns. The problem with load shedding is it is very unpredictable. In the winter of 2023, many people thought it was going to be very bad, with level 8 and even a complete collapse of the grid being predicted, and then it was not that bad at all, less than level 6.”
Lungile Mashele, an energy economist, said the major problem was the loss of six units and the delay in returning three units to service.
“Demand has not increased as yet because most industries are still closed. The anticipated increase in demand is what will most likely see higher stages of load shedding.”
Mashele added that the EAF has improved compared with a year ago.
“The challenge is that the system is subject to numerous variables, for example, weather, maintenance, plant performance and management. We will definitely experience load shedding in 2024; however, it will not be as severe and intense as 2023.”
Ruse Moleshe, managing director of RUBK, an energy and infrastructure consulting and advisory company, said the power system remained fragile.
“Any delays in returning generation units to service can impact on availability. Also, the maintenance of generation units has been ramped up to an average of 8 000MW, which bodes well for the future performance of the system, but impacts on availability of capacity.”
Moleshe added that there has been an improvement, especially relative to the same period last year.
“The Kusile Unit 5 that has recently been synchronised to the grid should mitigate some of the risk.
“Eskom will still experience setbacks in terms of returning generation units which experience outages resulting in load shedding.”
Samantha Graham-Maré, DA spokesperson on electricity, said the party was concerned about the swift return of load shedding.
“The temporary reprieve in power cuts over the festive season clearly resulted only from the downturn in economic activity over the holidays. With the economy opening back up, Eskom has been forced to immediately reinstate load shedding.”
Graham-Maré added that she was concerned that load shedding could get worse as more businesses open up after the festive season.
“Even though last year saw the highest levels of load shedding in South African history, the immediate reinstatement of rolling power cuts is an omen that the power crisis may hit businesses, workers and consumers even harder over the coming year than ever before.”
On December 31, Eskom said Unit 5 of the Kusile Power Station Project was synchronised to the national grid for the first time.
“The unit will contribute an additional 800MW to the country’s power system which was never part of the Eskom’s grid capacity. It will supply electricity intermittently during the testing and optimisation phase over the next six months before being transferred into commercial operation and the capacity officially added to the current Eskom fleet.”
The Mercury