Load shedding suspended for one more week
Power utility Eskom says that load shedding will be suspended for one more week, announcing that outages will be stopped until Friday, 29 December, at 16h00.
The group said that this is possible thanks to improved generation performance, lower demand for the holiday period as well as sufficient emergency reserves.
If nothing unexpected happens to reintroduce load shedding over the next few days, this will be the longest streak of no load shedding since October, and the first time the country has seen multiple weeks of no outages since August 2022.
The utility said it would announce any changes if and when they happen.
It must be noted that the improvements in load shedding in recent weeks do not put the country in the clear, as the return to normal business and factory operations await in the new year.
However, while breakdowns and demand are low, Eskom has moved to significantly ramp up its maintenance, which should put power stations on better footing when the demand inevitably starts increasing in 2024.
The EAF problem
Eskom is also still facing an uphill battle getting its Energy Availability Factor to where it needs to be.
Despite load shedding suspensions and big drop in breakdowns at its power stations in recent weeks, Eskom is still some ways off from hitting its energy availability target for March 2024.
As part of Eskom’s longer-term recovery plan, the group has set a target of hitting an Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of 65% by March 2024, and reaching 70% by March 2025.
The energy availability factor shows the percentage of time the power station was available for use when it was needed. It is a core measure of performance.
If the EAF can be improved to around 70%, load-shedding will be a thing of the past, and South Africa will have electricity security.
However, the latest data compiled by independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan shows that the power company is struggling to get further than an EAF of 55% – which is even lower than the 60% EAF target Eskom set for March 2023.
The group had come the closest to achieving this target in October, when EAF breached the 60% level – but this was incredibly short-lived.
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