By as soon as Wednesday evening, the amount of electricity that Eskom has failed to provide will be greater than the power it couldn’t provide in the whole of 2022.
Data from Load Shedding Notifier, a popular smartphone app for checking power cut schedules, shows that Eskom, up to Tuesday morning, had failed to supply 11.6GWh of demand, just shy of the 11.8GWh of demand it failed to meet in 2022.
South African equities researcher and analyst Dwaine van Vuuren, who spotted the impending development, calculated that, based on current load shedding, Eskom will hit last year’s ignominious number by Wednesday evening, 10 May. If Eskom’s woes continue at a similar level, load shedding will be more than twice as severe in 2023 as it was last year.
There have already been 128 days of load shedding in 2023 — in a little over four months – compared with 206 days of blackouts in the whole of last year, according to data supplied by The Outlier, a data journalism project. So far this year there has been only one day when there were no power cuts: Human Rights Day, 21 March.
Eskom said it anticipates load shedding will continue at stage 6 – the worst-ever stage imposed so far – for the coming week. According to EWN, the utility’s interim spokeswoman Daphne Mokwena said it is working around the clock to return various units to service.
“Over the weekend, a generation unit each at Majuba, Medupi, and Tutuka power stations was taken out of service due to breakdowns. Furthermore, the delay in returning units to service at Arnot, Camden, Hendrina, Majuba, Matla and Tutuka power stations continues to add to the current capacity constraints,” she said.
But the average stage for the day has been increasing steadily since July 2022, when it reached stage 4 for the first time. Since then, the average has hit stage 4 as many as 52 times up to the end of February 2023, and is steadily climbing higher each month.
Stage 8
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said yesterday that he “could not preclude the likelihood of going to stage 7 or 8 this winter”.
Meanwhile, the public enterprises department said it will appeal a court order exempting public hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations from load shedding.
More than a dozen organisations and political parties approached the courts earlier this year to have load shedding declared unconstitutional and last Friday, the high court in Pretoria ordered minister Pravin Gordhan to take reasonable steps to ensure there’s enough electricity at public health facilities and schools. However, his department raised “serious concerns” about the implications of the order on efforts to stabilise the power grid and get the country out of load shedding.
And, according to a Bloomberg survey, the Reserve Bank has reduced its economic growth forecast for 2023 to 0.3%, from 1.1% previously. Governor Lesetja Kganyago says power disruptions will shave two percentage points off output growth in 2023 — and economists in the survey see a 45% chance of the nation slipping into recession this year as a result. – © 2023 NewsCentral Media
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