Cape Town – Eskom has indicated a more favorable outlook for load shedding during the upcoming summer months and early 2024.
The Acting Group Chief Executive, Calib Cassim, announced this during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Eskom anticipates a reduction in unplanned breakdowns, which would result in lower stages of load shedding.
However, Cassim cautioned that the possibility of higher load shedding stages still exists, with a maximum of Stage 4 in the outlook.
“Our base case of 14 500MW [UCLF] shows a maximum of Stage 4 load shedding in terms of the outlook. Does it mean we are saying that there’ll be no stage 6? No we are not saying that. If the unplanned outages increase to the outer scenarios of 17 500MW, then you would utilise Stage 6 to protect the integrity of the grid,” Cassim said
He explained that this projection is based on an expected Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF) of 14,500MW, compared to the winter average of 16,500MW.
Eskom Acting CEO Calib Cassim tells #Newzroom405‘s @NtoksKhumalo that South Africa will not experience higher stages of load shedding by the end of the year and the beginning of 2024.
Watch: https://t.co/rV1D3JIqNL#Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/URXKCIIg8p
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) September 27, 2023
“In winter, the average UCLF was around 16 500MW. This outlook for summer is… 14 500MW. Why are we saying that? The fundamental point is that you are bringing back over 2 000MW [at] Kusile… the three units plus unit 5. That is why we are confident with the 14 500MW.
“In doing this outlook of these scenarios, we, on the Kusile side, had the assumptions of these units returning from the temporary stacks, coming online at the end of November and December.
“From a management perspective, yes we’ve got our base case, [but] we are making every effort to reduce below 14 500 MW,” he said.
Cassim apologised for the current inconvenience caused by load shedding and said that it is implemented to manage the system and prevent a complete blackout.
“Eskom does apologise for the inconvenience to the economy and livelihoods and the impact it’s having on everyone in the country and the impact on the GDP.
“But let’s also understand and appreciate that we implement load shedding to manage the system to avoid a blackout,” he said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
