Eskom’s generating units are proving unreliable and unpredictable, the minister said this week<\/strong><\/a>, and unplanned outages have again started climbing alongside the delayed return of units to service following maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, according to independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan, the swift return to load shedding in 2024 should not have come as a surprise to anyone looking at the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of the return of load shedding from 1 January – after 18 days of zero outages – the ramping up of Eskom’s planned maintenance dispite increasing unit losses made load shedding inevitable at the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the system briefly recovered, delivering some load shedding suspensions again over this past weekend, the return to load shedding on “Trouble Tuesday<\/strong><\/a>” was again easily predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is noticeable how low the pumped storage reserves were on Sunday, going into a week with an expected up-ramp in demand,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eskom was effectively hit from three fronts in the past week<\/strong>, leading to the return of outages: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysing the latest data from Eskom on its fleet performance in the first week of the year, this trifecta of blows is evident:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unplanned outages, while lower than seen during the course of 2023, started creeping higher in the last week of the year, continuing into 2024. A sustained level above 30% makes load shedding all but guaranteed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Planned maintenance has shot to record highs as Eskom took advantage of the much lower demand in the holiday period – however, these levels have been sustained in the new year despite demand slowly climbing higher. Meanwhile, delays in returning these units to service tanks energy availability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The big EAF problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This scenario ultimately led to the utility’s energy availability factor (EAF) tanking – starting the year below the 50% level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Jordaan, revised data shows that the EAF already dipped below the 50% mark in the prior week (final week of 2023), which is worrying considering the target of 60% EAF was made for March 2023, and 65% is targetted for March 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EAF is nowhere near these level and appears to be getting worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jordaan said that crash in EAF is partly due to the “extraordinary” levels of planned maintenance (PCLF) and a resurgence in breakdowns. In the coming weeks, demand is likely to add even more pressure<\/strong> to the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The plant unavailability caused blackouts to reappear earlier than hoped, despite ultra-low demand. The data shows that in prior years, week 1 normally posted a much lower PCLF than the previous week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “The continuation of the lofty PCLF from last week suggests that a substantial portion of the PCLF was, in fact, unplanned as units were simply not returned on time<\/strong>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jordaan said that this scenario creates its own problems as it means that current PCLF levels are inferior to years gone by and are not comparable without a discount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deterioration in EAF came even though demand was still very low – lower than prior years by some margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “The first ISO week of 2024 recorded a seismic shift in demand, dropping 2.2 GW per hour and landing 10% below the seasonal norm of 24.2 GW per hour,” Jordaan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In addition to the effects of the private solar boom, fair weather and holidaymaking also pushed demand lower for longer.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as industries get back to work in the coming weeks, demand is expected to climb rapidly, leaving Eskom with a potentially huge shortfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Supply was also lower than in previous years, despite the return of three and the addition of one, coal-fired units over the past three months. A generation shortfall of 0.8 GW per hour (3.7% of demand) exacted 10.4% in blackout time for the week,” the analyst said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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