Stage 6 rolling blackouts to continue until after evening peak on Wednesday, says Eskom CEO

Source: https://theoutlier.co.za/loadshedding-tracker

By Victoria O’Regan

20 Feb 2023

‘The forecast is that we will have load shedding Stage 6 prevailing until Wednesday evening peak, and by Thursday… be able to start phasing that down to load shedding Stage 4, with Stage 3 being reached by the weekend,’ said André de Ruyter.

A combination of coal supply constraints due to heavy rainfall around South Africa and further breakdowns at Eskom’s power stations pushed rolling blackouts to Stage 6 over the weekend, which is likely to continue until after the evening peak on Wednesday. Then it is anticipated the country will move to Stage 4 power cuts, said Eskom CEO André de Ruyter on Monday.

At an Eskom state-of-the-system briefing on Monday, De Ruyter urged people to be mindful of their electricity consumption as Eskom’s available power fleet teeters.

“We do face a very constrained situation at this point in time. We appeal to the public to use electricity sparingly, please.”

The failure of eight generation units at the weekend triggered Stage 6 load shedding, for the fourth time this year, on Sunday night. In some parts of SA, that could mean no power for up to 10 hours a day.

eskom (Source: https://theoutlier.co.za/loadshedding-tracker)

Coal constraints

On Sunday, 21,243MW of generating capacity was out because of the breakdown of units at Arnot, Hendrina, Lethabo, Majuba and Camden power stations, Eskom said in a statement.

At Lethabo power station, a further two units were shut down after heavy rains prevented the delivery of coal from the New Vaal mine to the station. Lethabo’s three operating units were at risk of shutting down if the coal supply constraints were not resolved. Additionally, 3,566MW of generating capacity was out of service for planned maintenance.

Given the many breakdowns, Eskom warned of the possibility of further stages of load shedding at short notice. However, on Monday, De Ruyter said Stage 8 blackouts were not on the cards.

“We do have contingency plans in place, should there be a further loss in generation capacity. At this point in time, we do not anticipate that there is a risk of going beyond Stage 8… I can give the country the assurance that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we do not end up in a situation where we go beyond that,” said De Ruyter.

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As of Monday afternoon, 3,766MW of generating capacity was out on planned maintenance. Full load losses stood at 12,318MW, while partial load losses were at 5,993MW. Eskom’s outside capacity loss factor — which relates to its constrained coal supply to Lethabo due to the inclement weather conditions — was about 2,100MW.

Taken together, this means 24,177MW of generation capacity was out of service. With a forecast demand of 27,282MW for the Monday evening peak, Eskom would have a shortfall of about 5,834MW, said De Ruyter.

“We are intending to return some units to service,” he added.

Eskom was working on returning units 4, 5 and 2 at Lethabo power station, and one unit at Camden power station, to service. By Monday night, the power utility was anticipating returning about 3,000MW of generating capacity to power, followed by at least 6,000MW by the end of the week.

“That will significantly alleviate the current constraint that we face in terms of generation capacity and will reduce the risk,” said De Ruyter.

“The forecast therefore is that we will have load shedding Stage 6 prevailing until Wednesday evening peak, and by Thursday… be able to start phasing that down to load shedding Stage 4, with Stage 3 being reached by the weekend.”

Diesel procurement

The power utility is being forced to rely increasingly on its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs), which were intended for emergency use only or to use during peak demand periods, to meet demand because of an increasing number of breakdowns within its ageing power fleet.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Diesel or darkness: PetroSA charges Eskom unfair prices, extracts upfront payments”

After Eskom ran out of diesel in November last year, it has been struggling to procure the large quantities of diesel needed to run its OCGTs. De Ruyter said Eskom had “resolved its funding issue” in relation to diesel, and was now able to procure diesel with the backing of the National Treasury.

“We have obtained the support of the National Treasury to give assurance to the banks from whom we’re borrowing money to buy the diesel, that the National Treasury will stand behind these loans… That has given us the ability to ease the liquidity constraint, and we can therefore continue to purchase the requisite diesel to maintain the supply to our open-cycle gas turbines,” said De Ruyter. DM

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South Africa

Coal constraints

Diesel procurement