Eskom shoots itself in the foot

Eskom’s decision to implement load shedding on New Year’s Day this year surprised energy experts, with questions being raised over the amount of planned maintenance needed.

With many high-energy users still on holiday until Monday, 8 January, National Rationalised Specifications Association of South Africa’s (NRS) Vally Padayachee said that he expected load shedding to remain suspended throughout the whole first week of the year.

However, as reported by City Press, Padayachee said this ended up not being the case as Eskom had taken more generation capacity out for planned maintenance than needed.

On 1 January, Eskom’s total generation capacity out for planned maintenance was 8,451MW, which rose to 9,074MW on Wednesday.

Although Eskom takes extra units out during the festive period due to the drop in demand for electricity (hence, the two-week suspension of load shedding at the end of 2023), Eskom’s generating fleet is now often on the brink, impacting consumers.

On 1 January 2024, Eskom said that its unplanned outages stood at over 16,200 MW – roughly a third of Eskom’s entire generation fleet.

In addition, Eskom has raised concerns over units breaking down soon after repairs are done, with the system operator questioning the efficiency of the work.

Padayachee said that Eskom should follow the example of the aviation industry and use a team of independent experts to guarantee that the repairs are done correctly.

This year’s concerns

Although Eskom has been able to suspend load shedding amidst the return of a few generating units yesterday, 6 January, independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan worries that Eskom’s coal-fired baseload is stagnating.

Eskom’s baseload improved from the 17.5 GW seen in Q1 2023 but only reached 18.5 GW by the end of the year. Jordaan said that 20.5 GW needs to be provided to ease load shedding.

The utility’s energy availability factor (EAF) is another fear, with it needing to hit around 70% for load shedding to end. However, by the end of 2023, it was only just above 50%.

Although it is unlikely that Eskom will be able to hit an EAF of 70% on a long-term basis, as reversing the declining trend will take years to resolve, energy experts have questioned if this is necessary as more private generation comes online, keeping millions isolated from Eskom’s struggles.

Read: Ramaphosa splits up Gordhan and Ramokgopa’s roles at Eskom