Deception will see load shedding reaching stage 12 before winter

A new era of clean energy is long overdue for South Africa, as the country trickles in and out of stage 8 load shedding, with experts saying the deception around the stages will see SA reaching 10 and 12 before winter even begins.

Despite Eskom insisting load shedding will remain at stage 6 until further notice, experts have argued South Africa hit stage 8 load shedding last week.

According to renewable and clean energy expert Professor Willie Cronje, there was deception around the load shedding stages, “accompanied by a lot of political drama, and more than what it re- ally is”.

Stage 12 looming

“Technically if it’s stage 6 currently, it makes sense, but neighbouring countries sometimes have like hours of load shedding per day and would be, like, stage 10 or 12.

“So the bottom line is, whether we are on stage 6 or 8, we are likely to go even further than 10 hours a day without electricity if things get worse.

“South Africans just have to get themselves ready for candles and generators.” Energy analyst Lungile Mashele said stage 8 happened last week, “however this was not the first time this year”. “We had over 7 000 megawatts in reduced demand.

This was a mix of manual load reduction, interruptible load shedding and virtual power station,” she said.

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Yesterday Eskom said due to a shortage of generation capacity, stage 6 load shedding would continue to be implemented until further notice.

“Eskom will publish a further update as soon as any significant changes occur,” it said.

“Break- downs are currently at 17 481MW of generating capacity, while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 5 657MW.

 “Over the past 24 hours a generation unit each at Duvha and Medupi power stations were returned to service.

“In the same period, two generating units at Kriel, as well as one unit at Koeberg power stations were taken offline for repairs.

“The delays in returning a unit to service at Kendal, Kriel, Medupi and Tutuka power stations have contributed to the capacity constraints and the team is working around the clock to ensure these units are returned to service as soon as possible.”

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Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa during a media briefing at the Union Buildings recently warned of a dark and cold winter if Eskom’s grid remained constrained, and noted that Eskom needed about 6 000MW to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

R a m o k g o p a said with the energy demand expected to grow in winter, the gap could increase to 10 000MW, which may result in higher stages of load shedding with the power utilities energy availability factor averaging 53%.

Difficult choices

He also said the country faced difficult choices regarding power generation, saying the plan to boost renewables did not match the plan to decommission coal power plants “watt for watt”.

The government should con- sider slowing down the decommissioning of coal and invest in extending the life of the coal fleet.

However, in his note, “plans to close old coal power station are crazy, right? Not so fast”, published by Sunday Times, energy analyst Professor Anton Eberhard said the government had yet to demonstrate its appreciation of the scale and urgency of this investment challenge.

SA could end load shedding “by embracing a clean energy transition which incorporates an in- creasing share of low-cost, quickly mobilised solar and wind energy, enabled by transmission access and backed by flexible power”.

“As any electricity system operator will confirm, energy security is achieved by balancing and optimising the system as a whole. “More solar and wind on the grid provides additional energy to replenish pumped storage and diesel, which enables peak electricity to be met.” – reitumetsem@citizen.co.za

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