SA’s ancient coal fleet nears zero capacity as power utility loses units

South Africa’s ancient, poorly maintained coal fleet is operating at a capacity factor of around 41% with many saying it will not take long before it hits zero.

According to energy expert Clyde Mallinson, the coal fleet was “flirting” with a capacity factor of just over 41%.

He said this translated to a shortfall of about eight gigawatts.

“Hope no more units drop out,” he said on X. Benoit le Roy on X said: “In a decade we have gone from 85% to 41% and have two ministers of no electricity too.”

With Eskom moving to stage 5 from 5am to 4pm and stage 6 of load shedding from 4pm until 5am, which would be repeated daily until Friday morning.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said it was due to the loss of four generating units, the need to replenish the emergency generation reserves and increased planned maintenance as previously communicated.

“Breakdowns were currently at 16 784MW of generating capacity while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 4 987MW. Over a period of 24 hours, a generation unit each at Camden, Duvha and Kendal was returned to service,” she said.

“In the same period, a generating unit each at Duvha, Grootvlei, Kendal and Matla power stations was taken offline for repairs. The delay in returning to service a generating unit each at Hendrina, Kendal, Matimba and Matla Tutuka power stations is also contributing to the current capacity constraints.”

On Sunday – during his weekly energy action plan update – Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the power cuts would remain at low stages, and that Eskom would “stick to its planned maintenance schedule”.

“We ramped up planned maintenance, we were reaching about 6 000 megawatts…We then removed an additional 3 500MW from the grid, and this is us controlling that exercise.”

SA had been fighting higher stages of load shedding recently after Eskom doubled down on its maintenance efforts.

Eskom had three forms of power outages which reported as unavailable units as a percentage of total unit capacity measured over a certain time and included:

• Planned maintenance outages (planned capability loss factor – PCLF).
• Unplanned outages (Unplanned capability loss factor – UCLF).
• Outages by other constraints from Eskom’s side (Other capability loss factor – OCLF).

“We do accept that in the short-term it’s going to result in the possibility of intensified load shedding,” Ramokgopa said.

However, Daily Investor reported it analysed Eskom’s performance and load shedding under Ramokgopa and established the rolling blackouts have increased since he was appointed.

“We looked at the performance and compared it with the same period last year,” it stated.

“It should be noted that Ramokgopa inherited a poorly functioning Eskom, which will take a long time to fix. This analysis should, therefore, be seen as a reality check of the political promises rather than Ramokgopa’s competence.”

Daily Investor noted the average year-on-year load shedding stage increased from 1.94 in 2022 to 2.64 in 2023 under Ramokgopa leadership and the moving average chart of load shedding showed the progress in the severity of load shedding stages from 2022 to the same period in 2023 under Ramokgopa.

“The UCLF and the OCLF are the most significant as they point to failures on Eskom’s side. Plotting the combined power unavailability due to UCLF and OCLF shows the increased outages under Ramokgopa,” it stated.