Eskom said on Monday that load shedding is unlikely this summer, and South Africa may be getting closer to announcing a permanent end to the rolling blackouts that have plagued the country for more than 15 years.
CEO Dan Marokane told a media conference at Megawatt Park in Johannesburg that the 152 load shedding-free days over the winter are likely to continue into the summer months – and by next March the company could be in the position to announce an end to the “chronic” load shedding that the country has experienced in the past.
“On the back of a structural shift in performance [of our generating fleet], we have reduced the base assumption for unplanned outages [for the summer],” Marokane said. The base case for unplanned load losses has been reduced to 13GW of capacity, down from the 14GW and 15GW base case communicated in previous reporting periods.
“Against this backdrop, if we keep unplanned losses below 13GW, we should have a load shedding-free summer,” he said. “In the worst case, if there is 15.5GW of unplanned losses, we will at most experience stage 2.”
Marokane said Eskom power station managers are “very alive” to the need to keep unplanned load losses below the 13GW base load forecast for the summer months so as to ensure the 152 days of no power cuts can continue for the foreseeable future. “We should have a comfortable summer,” the CEO predicted.
Helping matters further is that one unit at Medupi and two units at Kusile power station are expected to come online in the coming months, delivering 2.5GW of additional generating capacity, further reducing the risk of a return to load shedding.
‘Behind us’
“This should get us into a conversation that by March we can indicate from our perspective that load shedding at a chronic level, as it was, is behind us.”
Marokane cautioned, however, that summer heat and rain could have a negative impact on Eskom’s power generation units, which could push up unplanned load losses, potentially leading to “at most” stage-2 power cuts. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media