{"id":822862,"date":"2025-05-03T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=822862"},"modified":"2025-05-02T23:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T21:17:20","slug":"good-news-for-winter-load-shedding-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/822862\/good-news-for-winter-load-shedding-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for winter load shedding in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While Experts and members of Parliament have raised concerns about load shedding returning this winter, South Africa’s Electricity Minister says Eskom is in a better position than it was last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, 25 April, Eskom management appeared before Parliament\u2019s Electricity and Energy Committee to present its five-year corporate plan and budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this was a day after the power utility implemented stage 2 load shedding due to higher-than-expected electricity demand, the loss of generation units, and extensive planned maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Committee Members slammed<\/a> Eskom and said the sudden implementation shows that the utility is not on top of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the return of load shedding, the committee members were very concerned and worried about winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several energy experts, including Chris Yelland and Anton Eberhard, also share this concern about load shedding in winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eberhard highlighted that Eskom\u2019s energy availability factor averaged 55% and 58% this year, which was way below the utility\u2019s generation recovery plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Eskom\u2019s latest figures<\/a>, from 1 to 24 April 2025, the year-to-date EAF stood at 56.36%, a far cry from the promised 70% by March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDiesel-fired power stations\u2019 use has peaked, and emergency plants have been running hard recently,\u201d Eberhard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eberhard hinted that this data showed that more load shedding and power cuts were imminent in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland also said Eskom\u2019s lower-than-expected EAF raised concerns over load shedding during winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf EAF does not significantly increase as demand increases with the onset of colder weather, we will likely experience some load shedding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom is expected to present its winter outlook soon, outlining the expected load shedding levels and various scenarios for the coming winter months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good signs for winter load shedding<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
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Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Despite the concerns, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa expects the country\u2019s power plants to perform at the same capacity they did last winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the G20 Energy Transitions Working Group meeting in Cape Town this week, Ramokgopa said<\/a> he expects power station performance to match last year\u2019s levels, despite some recent concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason for performance to regress,\u201d he said, citing ongoing work by Eskom and increased generation capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramokgopa highlighted that several major units are either already back online or will return soon, which is expected to boost capacity significantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we went into winter last year, we didn\u2019t have Kusile Unit 6\u2014that\u2019s 800 MW. We didn\u2019t have Medupi Unit 4 either, which we will have by the end of May, another 800 MW,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramokgopa added that the utility expects Koeberg Unit 1 to return around July. \u201cAltogether, the grid is expected to have an additional 2,500 MW available compared to last winter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While April saw less-than-ideal energy availability, the minister stressed that the issues have been identified and are being addressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the reasons we found for lower energy availability was post-outage failure. You take the unit out for planned maintenance, and it still has significant challenges when it comes back,\u201d Ramokgopa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team is addressing that. So I don\u2019t foresee that we will perform below what we did last year.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Echoing this cautious confidence, energy analyst Chris Yelland pointed<\/a> to recent improvements in Eskom\u2019s operational data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the energy availability factor (EAF) remains low at around 57%, he noted that Eskom has ramped up planned maintenance to the highest level in three years for this time of year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said this proactive approach is starting to pay off. Breakdowns have declined, and unplanned outages\u2014including generator failures and load losses\u2014have dropped to 26% over the past three weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland added that the latest system outlook represents a significant improvement from earlier this year when winter load-shedding seemed almost inevitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With better performance and key generation units returning to service, both Ramokgopa and Yelland suggest Eskom is in a stronger position to keep the lights on in the months ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts and MPs have raised concerns about load shedding returning this winter, but the Electricity Minister believes Eskom is better prepared for winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":801316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[20112,1164,1165,853],"class_list":["post-822862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-electricity-minister-kgosientso-ramokgopa","tag-eskom","tag-load-shedding","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822862","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822990,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822862\/revisions\/822990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}