Cape Town – Experts and industry leaders have said that Eskom is unlikely to experience a complete grid collapse or blackout despite ongoing electricity generation challenges.
During a webinar organised by the Government Communication and Information System, Eskom’s General Manager System Operator, Isabel Fick, said that while South Africa does face capacity generation issues, global examples show that capacity shortages have not caused national blackouts.
Fick highlighted that previous incidents of blackouts in South Africa were regional and unrelated to load shedding.
“The probability of a national blackout is extremely low. A number of other areas across the world…did have national blackouts. Nowhere will you see that [these] were because of a lack of capacity that caused a national blackout.
“In all those cases it was a cascading event starting in the transmission space,” she said.
Fick said South Africa has only had regional blackouts before and load shedding had no role in both.
“We have never had a national blackout in South Africa. We have had two regional ones before. One was an event where we had a transfer limit issue to the Western Cape and the other was a snow event in KwaZulu-Natal.
“In those cases we had to deal with a regional blackout and in the case of the Western Cape, we started load shedding in 2006 which was the basis of the current load shedding regime that we are using in South Africa,” she said.
She assured the public that Eskom has multiple defensive barriers in place, including a reserve margin of 2,200 MW, to prevent a national blackout.
Professor Jan de Kock, a Fellow of the South Africa Institute of Electrical Engineers, supported Fick’s statements and highlighted the continuous improvements being made to the grid by Eskom staff.
Vally Padayachee, Chairman of the Management Committee National Rationalised Specifications Association of South Africa, reaffirmed the association’s commitment to protecting the national electricity grid and preventing a blackout.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is collaborating with Eskom to ensure the stability of the system, conducting ongoing studies to assess safety margins, system reliability, and the need for mitigation measures.
Eskom utilizes a power system analysis software widely used globally to ensure the safe operation of the grid.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
