Cape Town – Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says despite efforts by Eskom to improve its generation system, South Africa can still expect intermittent load shedding.
The majority of Eskom’s units remain unreliable, and routine maintenance is being conducted to address this issue.
“We will have periods of days of no load shedding and there will be days of load shedding. Eskom has announced its summer outlook and it makes the point that we should not be at more than Stage 4 level of load shedding.
“While demand was low during the week 22- 29 December 2023, Eskom was working to address issues of its fleet and used the opportunity to carry out planned maintenance.
“We have been working during the festive season to ensure that we address issues of the fleet to continue to perform but also readying the fleet to ensure that once there is a ramp up of demand, the units are able to return back to service and remain in service while delivering efficient megawatts (MW),” Ramokgopa said.
[WATCH] Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says there is a possibility of load shedding returning this week if demand increases. He says it “might largely be concentrated in the evenings” only.#Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/kr7fD5kWco
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) January 9, 2024
The minister highlighted legacy problems, including underinvestment and inadequate planning for maintenance, contributing to the country’s unreliable grid.
He said that Eskom is scaling down its scheduled maintenance activities in anticipation of an anticipated increase in demand.
In contrast to December 2022 when South Africa faced load shedding, Eskom successfully brought three units online at Kusile last December, resulting in periods without load shedding.
“If you had to look at the work that has been done at Eskom, they have reduced repeat failures. We have additional buffer for instances of a cluster of units failing where you do not have to initiate load shedding or if you do, it is not at intense levels.
“Unit 1 at Kusile experienced significant delays in relation to the timeline to return to service, which was set for June last year but it returned five months later due to outage slips. We are confident that the work that has been done by the generation team has ensured that we will not have a repeat when we want to return unit 2, which is currently out,” he said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
