By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Minister in the presidency responsible for electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa dismisses reports that Eskom had ramped up the use of diesel-powered open-cycle gas turbines during April and May in the crucial weeks before South Africans head to the poll on 29 May.
South Africa has enjoyed 43 days without load shedding, a rare occurrence after more than two years of almost daily blackouts.
The country’s power crisis is one of the main reasons why the ruling ANC’s support has dwindled in the past five years.
Mimmy Gondwe, DA MP and the party’s shadow minister of public enterprises, said in a statement on Friday that the DA will submit a complaint with the Public Protector after a media report that the ruling party is putting pressure on Eskom to keep the lights on less than three weeks before the national election.
Ramokgopa said, that South Africa has been without load shedding due to the utility having sufficient generation capacity from a more reliable generation fleet and has denied reports that it was overusing its diesel-burning OCGTs.
“In April this year, Eskom spent R1.1 billion on OCGTs, producing 167.8 Gigawatt hours (GWh). This was about 60% less than April 2023, when a staggering R3.1 billion was spent to produce 470.22GWh.”
Ramokgopa said that the OCGT load factor for April 2024 decreased significantly to 6.8% compared to last year’s figure of 19.13%.
The minister said that consistently good performance has come from the Kusile, Lethabo, Majuba, Matla and Medupi power stations, and these stations have helped contribute to the EAF trend.
Eskom noted that Medupi and Lethabo, specifically, have achieved a YTD EAF greater than 70% (peaking at 87.6%,) by the end of March 2024.
In terms of stations showing an improved trajectory, the minister said that the EAF has been assisted by improving performance from the Arnot, Camden, Hendrina and Grootvlei power plants.
He said suspension of load shedding is driven by an improvement in coal fleet performance, supported by solar during the day.
Eskom’s energy availability factor has been historically on a linear decline of an average 3.8% since 2018 until January 2023 – which it says it has now stabilised.
Ramokgopa stated, that Eskom’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has breached the 70%, while just over R53.4 million was spent on burning diesel to power the Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGT) last week.
According to Ramokgopa, the EAF has breached the 70% mark and is currently tracking at 70.78%. This is the first time the EAF has breached 70% since August 2021.
For the month-to-date, the EAF is at 64,34% and year-to-date (YTD) the EAF has reached 59,92%.
On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the Energy Action Plan that was announced in 2022 is paying off as South Africa has now been without any loadshedding for more than six weeks.
In his weekly letter published on Monday morning, Ramaphosa adds however that it is too early to state that load shedding has been brought to an end.
“The sustained improvement in the performance of Eskom’s power stations – as well as the new generation capacity we have added to our energy system gives us hope that the end of load shedding is in sight.
“A renewed focus by Eskom on maintenance and the return to service of several units is now showing results. Losses due to unplanned outages have reduced by 9% between April 2023 and March 2024, adding the equivalent of 4,400MW of capacity to our national grid.
“Better maintained and more reliable power stations have increased the country’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF), which is the amount of electricity available from our power stations at any given time. The EAF has been above 60% since April, compared to 53% over the same period last year.”
Ramaphosa added that the stabilisation in the availability of electricity and the reduction in breakdowns signal a real trend in improved plant performance.