Breakdowns, diesel shortages at Eskom mean power cuts will continue

27 Nov 2022

The power utility says there is a shortage of generation capacity with more than 16,000MW unavailable because of equipment failure at its plants. Rolling blackouts, it says, are only implemented as a ‘last resort’.

Eskom has announced that rolling blackouts will be suspended from midnight on Sunday, 27 November, and will resume with Stage 1 from 5am to 4pm on Monday. Thereafter, Stage 2 will be implemented. It anticipated that there would be no power cuts on Tuesday.

#PowerAlert1

Loadshedding will be suspended at midnight, then resume with Stage 1 at 05:00 – 16:00 whereafter
Stage 2 loadshedding will be then implemented from 16:00 throughout the night. pic.twitter.com/1P2yqfbfzy

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 27, 2022

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said a high number of breakdowns and limited emergency generation reserves meant the power cuts would continue.

Eskom said there was a shortage of generation capacity with 5,032 megawatts (MW) under planned maintenance, and more than 16,000MW of capacity unavailable because of breakdowns at plants. It said rolling blackouts were only implemented as a “last resort”.

Eskom group chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said earlier this month that its coal fleet remained a challenge when it came to generation.

In May, Rhulani Mathebula, acting generation executive at Eskom at the time, told a system status briefing: “In terms of our energy availability factor on our coal fleet, we ended the year at 55.5%, which is extremely low.” (Mathebula resigned six months after being appointed; his last day at Eskom will be on 30 November.)

The coal fleet has been performing even worse this year, with Eskom officials reporting in a briefing this month that the year-to-date energy availability factor for the coal fleet is 53.9%. Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille has set the aspirational target of SA’s energy availability factor at 75% plus.

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“When a technology has reached the end of its life, it doesn’t make sense to continue to perpetuate it; the Stone Age didn’t end because of a lack of stones!” Eskom group CEO André de Ruyter said during a panel discussion on South Africa’s energy crisis at The Gathering, Daily Maverick’s flagship event held on 24 November.

“I don’t think that the fact that we have coal means that we should continue to burn coal… That’s a fallacy.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: “A just transition is the only solution to South Africa’s energy crisis, says Andre de Ruyter”

This is in contrast to the opinion of Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe, who said in January that rushing to shut down coal power plants was not the solution to SA’s energy woes. He said South Africa’s 16 coal-fired power stations provided about 75% of the country’s electricity generation. By 2030, it was estimated that would be 60%.

“You don’t destroy what you have on the basis of hope that something better is coming. You build for the future on what you know and what you have… So that approach to me is scientific, is systematic. It protects the present ability of the state to supply energy,” Mantashe was reported as saying at the time.

Diesel shortage

Eskom’s open-cycle gas turbines, which need diesel to run, are used during peak periods and in emergencies to supply enough electricity to the national grid.

But recently Eskom has attributed the continuing power cuts to constraints from its diesel suppliers, which affect the availability of bulk diesel to fuel its gas turbines.

On 24 November, Eskom announced that PetroSA had come to the rescue, supplying 50 million litres of diesel. This has allowed Eskom to reduce rolling blackouts during the night to Stage 3 (from Stage 4), and now to Stages 1 and 2.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Found: Fifty million litres of diesel for 15 days of relief – but source of funding future supplies remains uncertain”

Securing funding for future diesel supplies remains an ongoing concern.

Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson said the estimated cost to buy enough diesel to power the open cycle gas turbines to give enough power to the country is more than R60-billion, which is way above Eskom’s budget.

Business Maverick recently reported that eight months into its current financial year, ending 31 March 2023, Eskom had already exceeded its diesel budget of R12-billion. For this period, it had an initial diesel budget of R6.1-billion, later revised to R11.1-billion. By November, the power utility had spent R12-billion on diesel. DM

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Diesel shortage