Why stage 6 load shedding is back

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says that Eskom has been hit by another ‘perfect storm’ of breakdowns and capacity being offline, which led to high levels of load shedding making a return.

Eskom announced stage 6 load shedding in the early hours of Sunday morning (23 February) after about 20 days of no incident.

It said it would look at ‘stepping down’ from stage 6 on Monday.

Briefing the media later in the morning, the minister said that the return to stage 6 load shedding reflects “extraordinary circumstances” and should be considered in the context of an extended period with an uninterrupted energy supply.

However, that does not make the stage 6 load shedding any less regrettable, he said.

“The level of disappointment is well understood, especially because we were on the right path to eradicating load shedding,” he said.

He apologised on behalf of the administration for the setback.

Ramokgopa explained that multiple issues all hit Eskom in quick succession, leading to stage 6 load shedding:

• Five units tripped at Majuba Power Station on Saturday.
• A unit tripped at Medupi.
• Four unit trips at Camden Power Station on Sunday morning.
• Over 7,000MW is offline for planned maintenance.
• Emergency reserves are being used up and need to be replenished for the week ahead.

Ramokgopa said that the high levels of planned maintenance are in line with the power utility’s “calculated aggression” in tackling maintenance.

However, he stressed that this also comes with inherent risks, which are now playing out.

Keeping so many megawatts offline for maintenance means there is a much smaller ‘buffer’ in the event that units fail. So when units go offline as they have now, load shedding has to be implemented.

“That risk has materialised in this instance,” he said.

However, he stressed that this will not be compromised. The aggressive maintenance regime needs to be upheld – risks and all – so that the grid can become more reliable and stable.

Neglecting maintenance would just lead to more trips and breakdowns, making load shedding more frequent as was the case in previous years.

Explaining the sequence of events, he noted that five units tripped at Majuba on Saturday, taking about 3,000MW offline, necessitating stage 3 load shedding.

Overnight to Sunday, four units went down at Camden Power station at about 01h30 in the morning, necessitating the escalation of load shedding to stage 6, the minister said.

He said that there was no indication of sabotage.

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said that the loss of units at Majbua was due to a transformer overload, which was the main cause of the load shedding experienced this weekend.

The utility is doing a full assessment.

Camden’s failures were related to a valve failure which had another domino effect on various units. The CEO said that the utility has been doing work on this since November and has made progress in this regard.

Of the 10 units lost, six have been returned to service, with 3,200MW being brought back online. Another two units are expected to come back today.

Marokane said all units should be online by Tuesday, with all systems recovered by the end of the week.

The Stage 6 load shedding is necessary to protect enough capacity to restore emergency reserves, which will likely “be used extensively” this coming week.

Marokane said the utility will look at stepping down from stage 6 on Monday, 24 February.