{"id":689037,"date":"2023-05-18T08:55:50","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T06:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=689037"},"modified":"2023-05-18T09:06:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T07:06:38","slug":"eskoms-winter-load-shedding-scenarios-risk-of-stage-8-extremely-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/689037\/eskoms-winter-load-shedding-scenarios-risk-of-stage-8-extremely-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom’s winter load shedding scenarios – risk of stage 8 extremely high"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interim Eskom group chief executive officer Calib Cassim says that the risk of stage 8 load shedding this winter is “extremely high” if the group cannot contain unplanned losses.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a State of the System briefing on Thursday (18 May), Cassim repeated that the coming winter months – which have already started to set in – are going to be a very difficult time for the country and warned that South Africans should anticipate a struggle.<\/p>\n

Compared to winter 2022, the country will be entering the cold period with 3,000MW offline due to various long-term outages – such as those at Kusile and Medupi, as well as unit 1 of Koeberg being offline.<\/p>\n

He said that the power utility and the system operator have worked hard to develop a load shedding mitigation plan, with a particular focus on the energy availability factor (EAF) of power stations.<\/p>\n

However, in order to achieve this, Cassim said that Eskom needs to keep unplanned load losses below 15,000MW<\/strong>. He added that if losses exceed 18,000MW, the risk of stage 8 load shedding is extremely high<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At stage 6, consumers suffer outages for 12 hours in a 32-hour cycle. At stage 8, this escalates to 16 hours in a 32-hour cycle.<\/p>\n

The issue is that, by its own admission, Eskom has simply been unable to consistently contain losses below these levels – making the worst-case scenario more likely.<\/p>\n

According to Eskom, the country is entering winter with a near 6,500MW shortfall, with demand expected to reach 33,000MW against a supply of around 26,500MW.<\/p>\n

Energy demand in 2022 was around 34,000MW and has spiked higher in the past. Supply, meanwhile, has dropped below 24,000MW in recent months – even before increased winter demand.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Under its scenario modelling, depending on how severe losses are, load shedding will be as low as stage 3 to stage 5 in the base case – or could go as high as stage 7 and stage 8.<\/p>\n

In most cases, however, load shedding will likely be in effect permanently over winter.<\/p>\n

The group stressed that the scenarios are flexible and not static in any way, with the situation changing regularly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

According to Eskom chair, Mpho Makwana, the pressure from the winter months is exacerbated by shifting weather patterns, with recent wet weather in Johannesburg showing a dramatic change to typical conditions.<\/p>\n

“The power system will be even more constrained, and weather forecasters are predicting a harsh winter,” he said.<\/p>\n

In terms of mitigation, Eskom said it will be cutting planned maintenance to try and conserve megawatts wherever it can; it will also be turning to its Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) and burning more diesel to try and keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

Makwana repeated the group’s intention to push forward with demand-side management, which should assist with curbing energy demand during the winter months.<\/p>\n

However, most of the load shedding relief is only expected once winter has passed.<\/p>\n

Makwana noted that this will also be the first winter without 960MW from Koeberg Unit 1, which will only be back on the grid by September.<\/p>\n

He added that some downed units at Kusile will also only be back online by November 2023, which should provide some relief. He expects overall EAF to be at 65% by the end of the financial year, ie, by the end of March 2024.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Read: New delays at South Africa\u2019s nuclear power station add to load shedding woes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom says the risk of stage 8 load shedding this winter is extremely high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":685337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-689037","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\/689037","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689095,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689037\/revisions\/689095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}