A powerful weather front, which is sweeping across South Africa, looks set to put Eskom’s generation fleet to the test in the coming days.

The first winter storm arrives as the state-owned utility boasts, as of Sunday, an uninterrupted 67 days without imposing rolling blackouts on the economy.

With the cold weather expected to reach the economic heartland of Gauteng on Monday – with temperatures forecast to plummet – demand for electricity is expected to rise sharply. The maximum on Monday in Johannesburg is expected to be just 13 degrees, with lows near zero in the coming days.

“After a relatively dry and warmer-than-usual month of May, South Africans can expect the first significant drop in daytime temperatures over the coming days, with showers and thundershowers possible across most parts and even some snow over elevated areas,” the South African Weather Service said in a statement (PDF).

“This is a result of a developing cut-off low-pressure system (the northwards displacement of a low-pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere) over the western and southern parts of the country from Sunday into Monday, 2-3 June,” it said. “Cut-off low-pressure systems are commonly associated with widespread rainfall, snowfall, strong to gale-force winds and rough sea conditions in winter.”

Yet on Friday, Eskom said it expects load shedding will remain suspended due to “the ongoing structural improvement in the reliability of the generation fleet”.

Load shedding holiday

“The last time South Africa experienced such an extended suspension of load shedding was the period between 5 December 2021 and 2 February 2022,” it said.

“The Eskom generation operational recovery plan, initiated in March 2023, along with extensive planned maintenance, continues to deliver the improved reliability and availability of the generation fleet,” the utility said.

The unplanned capacity loss factor (UCLF) decreased to 28.37% in the financial year to date (1 April 2024 to 30 May 2024), a reduction from 35.5% recorded in the same period last year (1 April 2023 to 30 May 2023), it said.

Read: Some Eskom power stations will not be shut down as planned

“This reduction in UCLF represents a 7.5% improvement in the current financial year (1 April 2024 to 30 May 2024) as compared to the previous year in the same period.”

The year-to-date energy availability factor (EAF, 1 April to 30 May 2024) rose to 61%, up from 52.7% in the same period a year ago.

“The weekly EAF has moved from 57% to 65% from 1 April to 30 May 2024. The EAF improvement is primarily due to a drop in the unplanned outages of the generation units which averaged at 12.5GW in May.”

It said, too, that it is relying far less on diesel-burning open-cycle gas turbines to keep the lights on.

“From 1 April to 30 May 2024, Eskom spent R1.52-billion on OCGTs, producing 221GWh. This is about 79% less than from 1 April 2023 to 30 May 2023, when R7.1-billion was spent to produce 1 159.8GWh.

“The OCGT load factor for 1 May to 30 May 2024 continue to be much less at 2.18% compared to last year’s figure of 28.05% over the same period.”

It said the performance of its generation fleet “continues to surpass the winter forecast for this year”.

“The winter forecast anticipated a likely scenario of unplanned outages at 15.5GW and load shedding limited to stage 2. The current unplanned outages average at 12.5GW, which is 3GW less than what was anticipated.” — © 2024 NewsCentral Media