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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Minister also revealed that over the past two weeks, available capacity has \u201cconsistently\u201d exceeded peak demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there are reasons that load shedding continues to be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first of those is that at least 3,000MW of available capacity is drawn from open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT), which are burning on diesel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“…We have [now]reduced our consumption of diesel\u2026 so essentially, it\u2019s the true health of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe second reason is that\u2026planned maintenance still is significantly high. We are hitting about 8,000 to 9,000MW of planned maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven with that scale of planned maintenance, we still have a situation where we are able to keep load shedding at the levels of the worst, Stage 3 [or] oscillating between no load shedding to Stage 3,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minister emphasised that work continues to be done in the area of partial load losses \u2013 that is when generating units do not produce the full capacity they were intended to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe area that is receiving attention is the partial load losses of 6 700MW. It is our collective view\u2026that we can do much better here. Of course, some of it is a function of us exceeding our licence parameters, and those are areas that require attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo\u2026 the net message that I am conveying is that the system continues to improve. It has exceeded our expectation if the unit measure of the expectation is the unplanned capacity loss factor of 14,500MW\u2026we are way below that by about 1,000MW, despite the fact that planned maintenance is sitting at 8,337MW,\u201d Ramokgopa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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