Why stage 6 load shedding is back – and why there may be worse to come
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says that the lack of maintenance at Eskom’s generating units has caught up with the country and that South Africans can expect intensified load shedding to remain – at least in the short term.
Addressing the media on the return of stage 6 load shedding this week, the minister explained that the reason the country is back at the highest stage of load shedding it has hit (so far) is due to a double blow of increased planned maintenance as well as unplanned losses.
Several other factors also came into play. Overall, stage 6 load shedding is back because of:
- Increased unplanned losses from several big units going down
- Increase planned maintenance post winter
- Increased user demand above the norm
- Pumped storage losses
Stage 6 load shedding is currently in effect indefinitely, with an update expected as soon as the situation changes. It is currently expected that outages should ease towards the end of the week.
Romokgopa said that for years, Eskom’s units have been “exploited” without the necessary maintenance or the “philosophy of maintenance”.
“That has caught up with us; that is why we are in the situation we find ourselves in,” he said.
However, with the financial relief provided to Eskom in the form of the National Treasury’s R254 billion debt relief strategy, part of the conditions is that the power utility needs to maintain its assets.
Because of this, the group is now sticking to a rigorous planned maintenance regime, which will impact available supply.
“We accept that in the short-term, we face the possibility of intensified power interruptions,” Ramokgopa said.
“We say the possibility because if the planned maintenance is accompanied by increases in unplanned losses, then it means there will be an intesification of load shedding – which is essentially the situation we find ourselves in,” he said.
Ramokgopa said that planned maintenance was slowed down during winter as part of Eskom’s mitigation efforts to stave off high stages of load shedding due to increased demand.
During the winter months, planned maintenance was curbed to around 2,500MW. However, now that winter is over, planned maintenance is ramping back up and is now between 5,000MW and 6,800MW.
The effect of this has been seen in the intensification of load shedding – moving from periods where outages would be suspended during the day, to the stage2/stage4 rotations seen in more recent weeks.
This rotation was maintained while Eskom was able to keep unplanned outages below 15,000MW – however, that changed this week when losses pushed past 17,000MW.
Combined, the increase in both planned and unplanned outages has led to a shortfall of around 5,500ME to 6,000MW, resulting in stage 6 load shedding.
According to data provided by the minister, the country also faces problems from a third avenue: user demand.
While the winter demand profile peaked at 33,000MW – lower than expectations – the summer demand profile is currently tracking higher than anticipated.
South Africa’s summer demand profile is usually around 27,000MW, but it is currently over 28,000MW – spiking up to 30,000MW at times.
This adds even more pressure to the grid, which could result in load shedding escalating further.
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