Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. (Leon Sadiki/Getty Images)
South African households and businesses can expect load-shedding to drop from stage six to lower levels by the end of this week, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said on Tuesday.
Ramokgopa and Eskom group chief executive for generation Bheki Nxumalo gave this assurance during a media briefing on the current state of the electricity grid after several units broke down over the past two days. This was just as planned maintenance was ramped up, plummeting the country into stage six load-shedding on Monday.
Ramokgopa said Eskom’s unplanned capability loss factor (UPCLF) was 17 297 megawatts on Tuesday after a generating unit each at the Duvha, Hendrina and Tutuka power stations, and two generating units at Kendal were taken offline for repairs after experiencing breakdowns.
A delay in returning generating units at Kendal and Tutuka to service contributed to the current capacity constraints. Planned maintenance outages were at 5 467MW, bringing available capacity to 25 060MW against peak demand forecast at 28 303MW, the electricity minister said.
Ramokgopa said Eskom had had two choices; to delay ramping up its planned maintenance and draw maximum megawatts from the grid, which would provide immediate electricity but undermine the grid, or to stick to its budgeted R10 billion planned maintenance programme, even if it meant taking units offline that are presently helping to stave off load-shedding.
He said Eskom had avoided the worst case scenario forecast of hitting stage eight and higher levels of load-shedding during winter which would have happened if unplanned capacity losses reached 18 000MW and peak demand hit between 33 000MW and 34 000MW.
“But we did not reach that because we slowed down planned maintenance, we used open gas turbines and spent a lot of money on diesel so we would be able to survive the winter period,” the minister said.
“We have now reached summer period where demand has gone down and we are ramping up planned maintenance to ensure we build resilience into the system to ensure the system can give us as much sustainable generation capacity as possible.”
Ramokgopa said the unplanned capacity losses caused by the breakdowns at the weekend and on Monday had led to stage six load-shedding.
“We want to be sure we can keep unplanned capacity losses at sub 15 000MW and what happened yesterday was that the unplanned capacity losses reached 17 297MW. The stage six load-shedding we’re experiencing now is largely because of us ramping up planned maintenance and the issues of unplanned capacity losses,” he said.
“We need to stick to our philosophy and planned maintenance. There are short term pains but long term gains that will not be felt immediately.
“Part of the reason we are where we are as a country with relation to deteriorating capacity is that we have not been sticking to planned maintenance, we have not been sticking to philosophy maintenance [lifetime schedules prescribed by original equipment manufacturers regarding major overhauls and repairs to equipment].”
Ramokgopa said the fiscal injection of R250 billion into Eskom meant it now had to invest in equipment maintenance.
“We do accept that in the short term it means there will be an intensification of load-shedding and that is the situation we find ourselves in,” he said.
The electricity minister said Eskom appreciated the direct negative effect load-shedding was having on the economy.
“Load-shedding is a structural impediment to the economy and the economy won’t recover as long as there is load-shedding,” he said.
Nxumalo said his team was overseeing the work of contractors who had incentives to ensure that the power stations run for sustained periods of time and so prevent sabotage. He said equipment failure and not foul play had caused the recent breakdowns of generating units.
“Maintenance is going to be key; we are going to suffer short-term pain but there is going to be long-term gain and when we are out of this situation we will have some confidence concerning the reliability of the grid,” said Nxumalo.
Both Ramokgopa and Nxumalo said they could not guarantee there would be no load-shedding during the Rugby World Cup which kicks off on 8 September because it was a tool Eskom needed to use to ensure grid stability.