New load shedding schedules: Power holiday is over

Whether City Power or Eskom manages the load shedding schedule in the City of Joburg, it makes no difference, says an energy analyst.

Johannesburg residents can expect longer sessions of rolling blackouts, after City Power revealed it would be reintroducing four-hour power cuts during the higher stages of load shedding.

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People had complained about long power outages. SA has been spared load shedding in the last two weeks.

But energy analyst Tshepo Kgadima said City Power’s plans not working out four weeks after taking over the management of load shedding was not surprising.

City Power did not generate more than 200 megawatts of electricity, which it bought from an independent power producer – Kelvin power station.

“There are six million people in Johannesburg, so a great number of those people are supplied by City Power, not by Eskom, but it makes no difference.

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“It is not surprising that load shedding will be for longer hours but it will be in tandem with what Eskom is doing,” he said.

When City Power took over the administration of load shedding in Johannesburg from Eskom last month, the utility said it wanted to give residents relief from long hours without electricity and it changed the stages from four hours to frequent two-hour episodes.

However, this change led to complaints from residents. City Power said the problem arose when Eskom bumped the schedule from stages 5 to 8, which saw the two hours repeating frequently, often with some customers shed twice in six hours.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the utility had managed to re-align blocks and reconfigured the network, and it was ready to roll out “a new load shedding programme from Christmas Day, which removed the two-hour break problem in higher stages”.

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“The four consecutive hours of load shedding will be similar to what customers experienced under Eskom, although on some days, particularly on stages 5 and 6, it will be less intense of an impact than during other stages.”

Kgadima said it was essential to look at Eskom because City Power could only distribute what was generated by Eskom.

Kgadima said electricity was generated only by Eskom because although independent power producers (IPP) of intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar, purported to have 7 000 megawatts connected on the grid, “not a single megawatt of the 7 000 ever reaches any user in this country”.

He said IPPs only added more pressure to the system and increased stages of load shedding.

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“Beyond City Power, right now demand is low, but what has not been factored in either by City Power or Eskom is the fact that electricity demand has been migrating at a far higher and faster rate than they could plan for.

“Today, more than 8 000MW of demand, which would have been met by Eskom, has migrated off grid because the demand at Eskom is only sitting at 24 000MW.

“Whether that demand is distributed, the demand is only 24 000MW during this festive season,” he said. “But when industries reopen, we will see accelerated rolling blackouts again.”

Kgadima added demand would increase by 3 000MW from 8 January and if it increased by 4 000MW (28 000-29 000) SA would have stage 2 load shedding by the first or second week in January.