By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Minister in the presidency responsible for electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says the main reason for implementing stage 6 load shedding was because Eskom had overcommitted its reserves and, in accordance with the Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF), needed to draw from the grid to replenish its reserves now.
Eskom implemented Stage 6 loadshedding at midday on November 24, a period that coincided with the yearly Black Friday retail event, during which shoppers flock to malls to take advantage of price specials.
The utility also indicated that it intended sustaining the same level of loadshedding intensity until 5:00 on Monday morning. During Stage 6, power is interrupted in some areas for between 8 and 12 hours in a day.
Speaking at a briefing organised hastily after the declaration, Ramokgopa said that although unplanned breakdowns and partial load losses were elevated at 15 600 MW and planned outages stood at 5 800 MW, Eskom would not typically have needed to resort to Stage 6 loadshedding over a low-demand weekend period to offset such losses.
He apologised to South Africans during a media briefing in Pretoria on Friday,
Ramokgopa also insisted that there had been no reversal in the recovery trend across the coal fleet and forecast that there would be “significantly lower levels of loadshedding” in December, even predicting that there would be some days when no loadshedding would be implemented.
He acknowledged, though, that the loadshedding threat could only be eliminated with the introduction of new generation capacity, and said actions were being taken to unlock private capacity and resume public procurement.
However, no firm date was provided for the resumption of public renewables procurement, which was initially scheduled to resume in the middle of 2023, but which had been delayed because of ongoing uncertainty over grid allocations.
Eskom group executive for generation, Bheki Nxumalo, later added that demand for electricity had spiked since Thursday and this was another reason for stage 6.
Nxumalo said air conditioners used in the heatwave gripping most of the country, may be one of the reasons for increased demand.
This increase in demand, in conjunction with units going down due to boiler leaks specifically, has hit the utility hard. But the pair said Eskom plans to ramp up maintenance.