{"id":284746,"date":"2018-11-16T11:50:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T09:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=284746"},"modified":"2018-11-16T11:53:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T09:53:02","slug":"load-shedding-could-hit-before-the-end-of-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/284746\/load-shedding-could-hit-before-the-end-of-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Load shedding could hit before the end of 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom may be forced to implement controlled blackouts before the end of the year because of pressure on the national system, CEO Phakamani Hadebe said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Insights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ten of Eskom\u2019s plants have less than 20 days of coal stocks. The company, which supplies about 90%\u00a0of South Africa\u2019s power, has battled low stockpiles of the fuel most of this year, threatening power stability and driving up coal prices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>High levels of unplanned maintenance are also a focus, the CEO said. Power generation availability has deteriorated due to poor coal quality, labour action earlier in the year and financial constraints that led to minimal maintenance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The company, which is struggling with high debt levels, will need to spend another R1.5 billion ($106 million) at its two new huge coal-fired plants that are already over-budget and behind-schedule.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eskom briefly implemented rolling blackouts in June for the first time since 2015 after protesters blockaded roads and attacked staff when wage negotiations broke down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A return to load shedding, as it\u2019s known locally, would add pressure on the economy that plunged into a recession earlier this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>More comments from Hadebe\u2019s briefing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Load shedding can\u2019t be ruled out for the remainder of 2018, the CEO said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The current system status is \u201cnot optimal.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Costly open-cycle gas turbines will likely be required until March because of planned maintenance elsewhere.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/284502\/eskom-is-looking-for-a-new-operating-model-as-it-fires-executives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eskom is looking for a new operating model as it fires executives<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom may be forced to implement controlled blackouts before the end of the year because of pressure on the national system, CEO Phakamani Hadebe said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":77851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-284746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284746"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284754,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284746\/revisions\/284754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}