Why SA enjoyed lower stages of power cuts recently, and why trend may continue this week
Eskom says the lower levels of load-shedding in recent days have been mostly due to an improved energy availability factor (EAF), as it edged to just under 60% in early June.
But this came at a price, as the embattled entity revealed last week that it had “made extensive use of the emergency reserves, among these were the pumped storage generators and the open-cycle gas turbines”.
“Higher stages of load-shedding over the weekend were required to allow time to replenish these resources,” Eskom told TimesLIVE.
BusinessLIVE reported on Tuesday Eskom has spent nearly R8bn on diesel to power emergency generation reserves in April and May, a rate that puts it on track to surpass this fiscal year what the utility spent in the previous two fiscal years combined. Eskom told the site it spent R2.34bn in April and R3.19bn in May on running its own open-cycle gas turbines and R2.3bn on privately owned ones over the two months.
South Africans enjoyed some reprieve over the weekend when the entity, in a surprise move, announced the suspension of power cuts from just before midday due to lower demand and improved generation capacity. This lasted until 4pm when stage four load-shedding kicked in between 4pm and 5am.
Spokesperson Daphne Mokwena told TimesLIVE it was again suspended just after midnight on Sunday and throughout the day. Stage two was then implemented from 4pm until Monday 5am but in another surprise move, Eskom again suspended power cuts on Tuesday morning. It announced: “Due to an improvement in available generation capacity, load-shedding will be suspended from 8am until 4pm. Thereafter, stage four load-shedding will be implemented from 4pm.”
On Sunday, breakdowns were at 15,846MW, down from 17,863MW.
Responding to queries from TimesLIVE, Eskom explained that while it had to make “extensive” use of emergency reserves during the week, “the different demand patterns on Saturday and Sunday and the time taken to replenish the emergency resources on Saturday determined when the load-shedding stage could be safely suspended”.
“Similarly, on Sunday the demand for electricity, use of emergency reserves and stage of load-shedding were optimised in real-time to minimise the load-shedding. Unfortunately, this optimisation cannot be accurately predicted in advance and results in abrupt suspension of load-shedding.”
Questioned on whether South Africans could look forward to a similar outlook for the rest of the week, the entity said the improved capacity and lower demand, coupled with the “higher winter tariff”, would make this possible during the day but not in the evenings.
“The colder winter weather increases the demand for electricity in the late afternoon and early evening requiring higher stages of load-shedding over these periods.
“The EAF of generation stations has improved from a year to date of 52.8% at the end of May 2023 to 59.91% so far in June. This is a major contributor to reduced load-shedding and the week’s favourable outlook,” it said.
TimesLIVE
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