Cape Town - Load shedding could be expected every day this winter, likely to fluctuate between stage 4 and stage 6, if all goes “according to plan”.
This is according to experts who said South Africans should brace for a dark winter, as high stages of load shedding are anticipated while Eskom continues to battle to keep up with demand amid generation capacity challenges.
The nation was again plunged into stage 6 load shedding on Wednesday. On Sunday night electricity pylons collapsed on the N4 highway in Tshwane resulting in large parts of Pretoria being without electricity.
At the site, Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa reportedly came clean that the power utility needed about 66 000 megawatts to fill its demand-supply gap.
Eskom would not respond to questions around the winter outlook or its plans to soften the blow on Wednesday saying it would hold a media briefing “in due course”.
However the power utility on Wednesday announced it had to implement stage 6 load shedding due to a shortage of generation capacity, until 5am on Thursday.
“Thereafter, Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented until 4pm on Thursday.
Breakdowns are currently at 16 772MW of generating capacity while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance has reduced to 5 807MW. Over the past 24 hours, two generation units were returned to service at Kriel Power Station,” Eskom said.
“In the same period, a generating unit at Duvha Power Station was taken offline for repairs. The delays in returning a unit to service at Camden, Kendal, Lethabo, Medupi and Tutuka power stations have contributed to the capacity constraints.”
Energy specialist Lungile Mashele explained that over the past weekend some worrying numbers had emerged.
“Easter weekend along with the New Year’s break has the lowest demand. This weekend demand fluctuated between 21GW and 27GW.
“This is why during the day Eskom was able to suspend load shedding.
“The challenge was during the evening peak. By Monday evening, signs were already there of a difficult week when demand reached a maximum of 27GW.
“During the weekend Eskom relied on diesel and more significantly on ILS from large customers. “This is very worrying for a pre-winter period. Eskom really struggled this weekend and this is why as pre-winter demand hit 31GW on Tuesday evening South Africa was plunged into stage 5 load shedding,” she said.
She said load shedding could be expected every day this winter, likely to fluctuate between stage 4 and stage 6, if all goes “according to plan”.
Independent consultant in energy research Hilton Trollip added that while demand would go up, the supply was not working half the time.
“The outlook for winter is what it’s always been but just a bit worse. There’s a physical system for these 80 or so big coal-fired generators which are old and have been hammered or new and poorly constructed, about half of those generators at any one stage are offline. Eskom doesn’t have the capacity to do so many repairs at the same time.
“The physical machines have just got one month worse. Eskom has published their annual capacity outlook out of 52 weeks, its 48 weeks code red which means at least two levels of load shedding but as winter comes on it will be more. When winter comes, people use electricity for heating, particularly when there’s a cold snap, and demand goes up a lot. There’s nothing that can be done to mitigate the situation in the short term which won’t make it worse unless this involves putting more generation capacity onto the grid. More new coal, more new gas, and more nuclear will take years and years and it’s not least cost. The least cost is to put as much renewables onto the grid as possible.”
Cape Times