South Africans should make peace with permanent loadshedding for the next two years, and it may be at either Stage 2 or 3, unless there are more breakdowns or units that trip unexpectedly, in which case higher stages will be implemented.
This is the latest from Eskom bosses during a briefing on Sunday morning, as they scramble to get more energy onto the grid and fix the issues plaguing the country’s coal fleet.
Eskom Board Chairperson Mpho Makwana says they are focused on turning around the power utility, but it will take time.
He says ideally, they would like to add some predictability to the system by implementing a permanent Stage 2 or 3 for the next two years in order to give sufficient space for maintenance while giving consistency to people so they can plan their livelihoods better.
”Shuttling from one stage to another within a short space of time is not good for the business community.”
But COO Jan Oberholzer says this predictability may not materialise any time soon.
”The power system I must just caution, although we have recovered from where we were two weeks, a week ago, the system unfortunately remains extremely unpredictable, unreliable and volatile.”
Outgoing CEO Andre De Ruyter added permanent load shedding won’t guarantee that higher stages of load shedding can be ruled out.
“We need to have the option of further stages of load shedding.”
He says energy availability hit a new low over the past few weeks, and work is underway to bring several units back online starting from the middle of this year, and into 2024, which will add much needed capacity.
The October 2022 failure of the chimney system at the Kusile Power Station, which removed more than 2 000MW of capacity, is the major cause of the elevated stages of loadshedding.
This, together with the planned extended outage of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, are responsible for three stages of loadshedding.
Planned maintenance, currently at 6 022MW is also underway, and is optimised during the summer months. In addition to the planned maintenance programme, Eskom is focusing on returning as much of the units with long-term breakdowns as possible.
The target is to return about 6 000MW of generating capacity onto the grid during the next 24 months. Each power station has detailed recovery plans.
De Ruyter says while supply will remain tight, Eskom welcomes the progress reported by the National Energy Crisis Committee to enable embedded generation investors to add new capacity.
These projects are estimated to exceed 9 200MW and will, when they come online, help relieve some of the pressure and help reduce the occurrence of loadshedding.
De Ruyter has appealed to all South Africans to save power, especially during 16:00 and 19:30 in the evenings.
“If you can switch off your air-conditioners, only boil the water that you need, don’t fill the kettle up…these small steps, if they are carried out by 61 million South Africans on a collective basis…we can really make a major difference.”
READ MORE: Lawyers threaten legal action against Eskom, Gordhan over loadshedding
