It’s ‘naive’ to think an improvement in EAP means an end to load shedding

An unstable generating system continues to bring rolling blackouts, with temperatures plummeting as cold front sweeps across South Africa.

In a statement yesterday, Eskom’s said it would implement stage 4 load shedding from 7am until 2pm and thereafter stage 6 from 2pm until 5am today.

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Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said this was as a result of the loss of additional generating units overnight, the extensive use of open-cycle gas turbines and the inability to replenish pumped storage dam levels.

“This pattern will be repeated until further notice,” she said.

Eskom had initially planned for stage 4 from yesterday afternoon but due to reduced generation capacity, as well as the high sustained demand for electricity (about 33 000MW) required the extensive use of open-cycle gas turbines and pumped storage generation from the reservoirs over the past 36 hours.

Mokwena said over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at Arnot, Matla and Medupi power stations was returned to service.

“In the same period, a generating unit at Matla and two generating units at Kriel power stations were taken out of service due to breakdowns,” she said.

“The delay in returning to service a generating unit at Kendal and two generating units at Tutuka power stations are contributing to the current capacity constraints. Eskom teams are working tirelessly to return these generating units to service.”

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While the cold weather had placed additional pressure on the electricity grid as people used heating appliances to keep warm, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa last week said the Energy Action Plan (EAP) was bearing fruit, resulting in lower stages of load shedding. It’s been a year since the introduction of the EAP.

No guarantees on load shedding

“No-one can give guarantees on load shedding,” said energy expert Lungile Mashile.

“Load shedding takes into account numerous variables such as weather, diesel consumption, planned and unplanned maintenance, fleet performance and industrial demand. It would be naive of anyone to think that an improvement in EAP means an end to load shedding.”

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Mashile noted most of Eskom’s data variables change throughout the day and needed context when being read.

“The load shedding we’re experiencing will most likely continue as per the forecast winter demand. The question should be, what is the winter plan apart from burning diesel,” Mashile said.

Energy expert Ruse Moleshe said a more useful way to measure and report about the performance of the plants should be based on observed trends over a period of time, not day to day.

“Although Eskom has shown some improvements on the generation side, things can still go wrong,” she said.

Low demand

According to Moleshe, the improved load shedding stages were partly as a result of improved generation performance, but also due to lower demand for electricity.

“An increase in demand for heating due to the cold weather had changed that picture and plant breakdown will happen from time to time,” she said.

“Ultimately, in addition to fixing the plants, we need more capacity to build a reserve margin.”

Ramokgopa said Eskom had been able to reduce the capacity loss caused by plant failures to about 15 000MW, which was the best-case scenario forecast in its planning for winter “and we even recorded just below 14 000MW recently, as well”.

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“We can see that consistently we have been at 15 000MW or less and one of the days, we even recorded just below 14 000MW.”

Ramokgopa added when President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced the electricity department, outage slippage – when the utility cannot return out-of-service units on time – accounted for some 2 900MW.

“It’s almost three stages of load shedding and was now sitting at 1 351MW, which we want to improve further,” he said.

– lungas@citizen.co.za.

Additional reporting by Faizel Patel