Eskom remains positive about winter outlook after 80 days without load shedding

Eskom

Cape Town — South Africa has now gone 80 consecutive days without load shedding as Eskom continues to implement it’s recovery plan and improve its energy generation capacity.

South Africa last experienced such load shedding joy in 2021 when it was suspended for 75 days from 23 July 2021 to 6 October 2021. The power utility said it’s energy generation continues to surpass the winter forecast for the year, with unplanned outages currently at 12 000MW, an Eskom statement read.

Eskom will strategically utilise its peaking stations with the winter outlook, including the Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGT) to meet the high demand during morning and evening peaks.

“The winter forecast, published on 26 April 2024, anticipated a likely scenario of unplanned outages of 15 500MW and load shedding limited to Stage 2 – this remains in force.” it said.

It has shown a significant reduction in Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF), decreasing by 35.5%, as well as an increase in the Energy Avaailability Factor (EAF) by 8% since 1 April 2024 to 13 June 2024.

Eskom CEO, Dan Marokane, has now been in office for 100 days and he gave an update on the winter outlook. He said South Africa is on track for a comfortable winter as there is a positive trend. He said operational recovery remains top of his agenda, EWN reported.

“Our focus is really beyond today, beyond load shedding, setting up this business for the next version. What we have is a really good base to work on,” said Marokane.

“We have seen some phenomenal in as far as the reduction of unplanned outages. For us to have a much more comfortable winter, we need to stay below 14,000mw of unplanned losses. We have averaged now 12,000mw of unplanned losses and that gives us some comfort,” he added.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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