Energy experts have warned that as electricity demand increases going into winter, the situation will likely worsen and that this one-week improvement may not be the most apt analysis of Eskom’s entire fleet performance.
ESKOM has suspended load shedding until Tuesday, to much relief and also trepidation.
The power utility announced that load shedding would be suspended due to recovery in its generation capacity for the first time since October last year, when the country was hit with the most severe rolling blackouts yet.
Eskom last week announced that six of its coal-fired power stations achieved an energy availability factor (EAF) of 70%, a milestone last achieved in May last year.
These power stations were Camden, Duvha, Matla, and Eskom’s three best performing stations – Lethabo, Matimba and Medupi.
Eskom’s acting group CEO Calib Cassim said: “While this is still early progress, it shows a positive trajectory from actions taken to recover Eskom generation plants. This is consistent with Eskom’s target to achieve 70% EAF by 2025,” said Cassim.
This target formed part of Eskom’s generation recovery plan, however, the power stations spotlighted in the plan were its worst performing – Tutuka, Duva, Mejuba, Kusile, Matla and Kendal.
Energy experts warned that as electricity demand increases going into winter, the situation would likely worsen and that this one-week improvement may not be the most apt analysis of Eskom’s entire fleet performance.
Monique le Roux, a senior energy researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said the increase in EAF over the past week was widely welcomed but it was important to remember that EAF traditionally increased during this time of the year with an expected decrease in EAF going into the winter months.
Le Roux said: “It is still too early to tell if this increase will translate into a sustained turnaround in plant performance or if this has just been a lucky week for the power utility.”
Looking at the data, Le Roux said there was a clear trend over the past six years where a decrease in Eskom’s EAF was seen during the summer months and an increase in EAF during the winter months, which was when Eskom cuts back on planned maintenance.
She noted that there was linear decrease in Eskom’s EAF over the past six years. “The last few months of 2022 and first few months of 2023 have, however, clearly been much worse than what would be expected when looking at the general decline in EAF over the last six years.
“Eskom has only in the last week returned to levels of load shedding that are expected for this time of year considering the trends over the last few years,” Le Roux said.
She said it was still expected that high levels of load shedding would be experienced in the coming months.
This was echoed by Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Minister in the Presidency responsible for electricity, when he spoke to Bloomberg on Friday.
Ramokgopa said indications were that it was going to be difficult as electricity demand increased going into winter and the “dire energy situation” could deteriorate further.
Independent energy expert Hilton Trollip said: “In general, you can’t tell the performance of the whole fleet from just one week worth of EAF.
“It is possible to achieve short-term apparent better performance at the cost of medium- to longer-term worse performance. You can push the machines harder than you should and you can delay maintenance. You can do this for quite a long time and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest this was done between 2015 and 2016, at huge cost later to the machines.”
Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson to President Cyril Ramaphosa, on Sunday updated the public in a media briefing and said Ramokgopa had hit the ground running with his office set up and had engaged with a number of stakeholders from business to civil society and media.
Magwenya said the powers of the minister were being finalised and were just waiting the president’s signature.
Ramokgopa will be visiting a number of power stations starting from Monday. He will start with Kriel and Majuba and then on Tuesday will visit Kusile and Kendal.
On Wednesday he will visit Tutuka and Camden, then on Thursday he will visit Lethabo followed by a visit to Ankerlig, the OCGT and Koeberg.
