‘Short-term pain, long-term gain’ – Eskom explains when load shedding will end

Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says the current bout of load shedding is a result of Eskom’s aggressive maintenance plan.

Eskom ramped up load shedding from stage 3 to stage 6 in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“This measure followed the implementation of stage 3, necessitated by multiple unit trips at Majuba Power Station and a unit trip at Medupi that resulted in a loss of 3 864 MW in generation capacity, while planned maintenance accounted for 7 506 MW,” said Eskom in a statement.

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“Additionally, to replenish emergency reserves and prepare for the week ahead, stage 6 load shedding was essential.”

The implementation of load shedding was expected and necessary, said Ramokgopa in a briefing on Sunday.

Load shedding due to maintenance

The minister said the power cuts we are experiencing are due to the maintenance plan at Eskom, which will continue despite necessitating the occasional power cuts.

“We are guided by the generation recovery plan, which places front-centre investments on the installed fleet, ensuring we have these machines reliable. As part of that, we had to up our maintenance. So we had to go to levels of maintenance that have not been recorded in the recent past history,” said Ramokgopa.

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“Our planned maintenance is sitting at 7 500MW, which is significantly higher than the same period last year. We have accepted that there are inherent risks in this decision [aggressive maintenance] that we have taken.

“Why aggressive maintenance? We can be a bit conservative, but we will place a number of units at risk. When they fail, the failure might be catastrophic and require us to make even significantly greater decisions to protect the grid.

“Over this financial year, the level of calculated aggressive maintenance is not reckless; we must still maintain it. We have accepted that there are inherent risks when we go this route.

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“Suppose there are outliers in relation to major units failing simultaneously. In that case, you initiate load shedding because you have undermined your ability to have sufficient room to absorb the cluster of units failing.”

‘We have to continue’

Ramokgopa said Eskom will not back down on aggressive maintenance as it is the only permanent solution to load shedding.

According to the minister, although the aggressive maintenance has setbacks, it kept the country going without power cuts for months.

“The generation recovery plan is working but has its setbacks; we cannot postpone the maintenance,” said Ramokgopa.

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“We continue to be on the right path in ensuring that we eradicate load shedding. We apologise for this setback and its intensity because we have not experienced this in a long time. The quickest path out of load shedding is to ensure that we get Eskom right.

“This is what I call short-term pain, long-term gain. We cannot postpone the maintenance of these assets.”

When do we get out?

According to Ramokgopa and Eskom group chief executive Dan Marokane, the country will likely experience load shedding this coming week.

The intensity of the power cuts will be decided based on the number of units returning to service.

Marokane said six of the 10 units that tripped overnight have returned, and more are expected to be back online later today.

The officials expect the country to be out of this bout stage 6 load shedding by tomorrow. After assessing the situation after the 8pm peak period, a decision will be made.

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The country is expected to get out of load shedding by the end of the week.

Ramokgopa dismissed claims of sabotage at the power utility, saying officials could account for why the country was in stage 6 load shedding.

“The evidence is that this is a technical issue. There is no sabotage, and we are able to explain what went wrong. By the end of the week, we expect to return to normal conditions of no load shedding. This is momentary, not permanent,” said Ramokgopa.