‘Intense load shedding due to planned outages’ – Ramokgopa says Eskom to ramp up maintenance

Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has warned South Africa to expect more and possible higher stages of load shedding as Eskom ramps up maintenance on its units.

Ramokgopa was updating the media on the progress made regarding the energy action plan (EAP) and provided a weekly generation outlook on Sunday.

Planned maintenance

The minister indicated that the planned outages had been part of Eskom’s winter strategy in addressing the gap between supply and demand of electricity.

The planned power interruption, which usually occurs for Eskom to carry out repairs or maintenance, has reduced available generation capacity and has, therefore, increased the likelihood of higher levels of load shedding.

“The current intensity of load shedding as we are seeing it now is primarily on the back of us ramping up on planned outages,” the minister said.

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He explained that some of Eskom’s generating units would be shut down, but only a brief period so that they return online “healthy” and are able to generate electricity “for a significant amount of hours”.

“Of course we’ll do a computation of what that means in relation to the intensity of load shedding. And where we are we felt that because this is short-term planned maintenance, we knew the components that needed to be attended to. We don’t foresee this to be long outages and that’s why we chose to take [the units] out,” Ramokgopa continued.

“This is controlled intensity of load shedding to allow us the opportunity to get these machines to be fixed.”

Watch the briefing below:

Ramokgopa highlighted that the unplanned capability loss factor (UCLF) on units that keep tripping has also gone down as a result of the planned outages.

He said Eskom was looking to keep the UCLF at less than 15 000 megawatts (MW).

“That is going to help us address the available capacity and we should be able to meet the peak focus especially during this period when demand is tapering.”

UCLF is defined as the amount of time generation units were taken offline for unplanned outages and is calculated as a percentage of the total installed capacity over the same period.

Integrated resource plan

Ramokgopa further revealed that government aims to release its integrated resource plan (IRP) at the end of September.

The document, which is being handled by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), will outline the state’s plans regarding the cost of electricity and new power stations over the next decade.

The minister said on Sunday that “one or two things” needed to be “firmed up” before he would give a specific date for the plan’s release.

READ MORE: SA should brace for higher stages of load shedding going into 2024

“The DMRE has been running this process and seized with the matter for a long time. So, we will allow that to unfold to the point that it gets out to the public domain for public comments.

“We don’t want to stop-start the process because suddenly powers are assigned to you,” Ramokgopa said, adding he would provide more details at his next briefing.

China donations

Meanwhile, Ramokgopa insisted that there were no conditions attached to China’s donations to South Africa.

“On the issue of the donations in regards to the equipment, we know there are conditions attached and the R500 million is a discussion that is happening. We have made a commitment publicly that we will share [the details]. We are going to be very transparent and of course what is going to underpin the conversation is the protection of the interests of South Africans,” he said.

The Chinese government announced last month that it will donate R170 million in emergency power equipment and make available an approximately R500 million grant to South Africa to help alleviate the country’s energy crisis.

Ramokgopa, on 23 August, signed a joint memorandum of co-operation with Chinese entities on behalf of government.

The agreement expected to add an additional 9 000 megawatts to the grid by December.

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