Lights to continue to stay on
Load shedding will remain suspended until further notice, Eskom announced yesterday.
The country has not had rolling blackouts for 18 consecutive days – the longest stretch so far in 2024.
Suspension of power cuts
According to Eskom, the suspension of the rolling blackouts was due to the sustained availability of generation capacity and emergency reserves at its power stations.
Another 2 150 megawatts of generation capacity was due to be restored by today.
Unplanned outages stood at 12 850MW of generating capacity. The capacity out of service for planned maintenance stood at 7 368MW.
Planned maintenance
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa last week attributed the decrease in the intensity and frequency of load shedding to planned maintenance. This signalled progress in energy stability.
Ramokgopa hinted that Eskom planned to leverage the extra capacity generated from wind energy to mitigate the impact of load shedding, starting in May.
“In winter, when a cold front passes through the Western and Eastern Cape, the wind generation increases significantly, so we are going to see a greater contribution from wind energy,” he said.
Eskom still anticipated allocating R30 billion for diesel procurement for the current financial year.
He added in the next five months, SA would see more than 2 500MW of new generation coming on line.
EAF negatively impacted
Ramokgopa revealed in a parliamentary response published last week that Eskom’s decision to intensify planned maintenance had negatively impacted the energy availability factor (EAF), which stands at 52%.
However, this would improve plant reliability over the long term.
“The highest level of planned maintenance was [in] December and January, reaching an average of 18% of the generation capacity. The downside was a negative impact on EAF.
“However, the deliberate spike in planned maintenance aims to improve the reliability of the generation fleet, deliver long-term benefits and ensure the security of the energy supply.”