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SA seeing downward trend in electricity demand as stage 3 load shedding returns
Peak demand for electricity has reduced over the past week.
Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa had detailed Eskom’s struggles. Picture: Gallo Images/Frennie Shivambu
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says there has been significant improvement on Eskom’s generation capacity, with lower stages of load shedding on the cards over the weekend.
Ramokgopa virtually briefed the media regarding the implementation of the Energy Action Plan following his visit to the Redstone Concentrated Solar Power Plant in Postmasburg, Northern Cape on Friday.
Energy availability factor
The minister described the progress being made in addressing the country’s energy crisis as “marginal and significant”.
Ramokgopa said load shedding stages have been reduced in the past few days following an improvement in the energy availability factor (EAF), which currently stood at 60%.
“The last time we reached an energy availability factor of 60% on a specific day was the 2nd of September 2022. When we started in May, the improvement in relation to the EAF was about 7 percentage points.
“On average, a 1 percentage point increase represents 477 megawatts [MW]. If you have a 7 percentage points increase, you are breaching the 3 000MW of additional generation, so essentially we are talking about three stages of load shedding,” he said on Friday.
Ramokgopa revealed that the peak demand for electricity had reduced in recent times as the winter period approaches when energy demand is expected to increase.
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“A major contributor we are seeing is that the demand has not peaked to the levels that we had envisaged [but] of course there is still more days ahead of winter and it’s likely going to reach levels that we have projected. For now, we are benefitting from the fact that we are experiencing a lesser peak in demand, averaging 29 000MW,” he said.
The minister said the aim was to sustain the downward trend in demand with the intervention measures put in place.
Such interventions include two additional hybrid projects from the risk mitigation independent power procurement programme.
“We want to sustain this performance and key to this performance are the Eskom units so that they become reliable,” the minister continued.
Ramokgopa highlighted that there were teams trying to help optimise the Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs).
According to the minister, the objective was to increase the load factor of OCGTs to over 20%, reducing load shedding by approximately two stages.
Last week, Ramokgopa indicated that technical experts would be sent to four power stations to assist to manage load shedding.
Load shedding
Meanwhile, Eskom has announced that stage 3 load shedding will be implemented at 4pm on Friday.
Stage 1 load shedding will be implemented from 5am to 4pm on Saturday, followed by stage 4 until midnight.
The power utility indicated that the same stages of load shedding will be in place on Sunday.
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“Breakdowns are currently at 16 546MW of generating capacity, while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 2 497MW,” Eskom said in a statement.
“Over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at Kendal, Lethabo and two generating units at Camden power stations were returned to service.
“In the same period, a generation unit each at Arnot and Matla power stations was taken out of service due to breakdowns. The further delays in returning to service a generating unit at Arnot, Grootvlei and Hendrina power stations are contributing to the current capacity constraints.”
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