Cape Town - Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter has not ruled out the possibility of moving to higher stages of load shedding, which can currently go up to stage 8.
Eskom’s failure to keep the lights on will see President Cyril Ramaphosa cut short his trip to New York for the UN, and he is expected to return to the country after Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday. But what he will do to stop the power cuts is unclear.
But what he will do to stop the power cuts is unclear.
De Ruyter told a media briefing on Sunday that with the current performance of Eskom’s ageing coal fleet, the risk of higher stages of load shedding, which currently can go up to stage 8, remained.
“We cannot deny there is a risk. We are doing a lot of repair work and maintenance to cap the stage 6 load shedding and avoid further stages.
“What took us into stage 6 was the fact that Kriel unit 2 tripped this morning at 3.39am.
The chief operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, consulted with the system operator (and) phoned me just after that, and by 4.19am we took the decision that stage 6 was regrettably unavoidable.
Since then, we have seen Kusile unit 3 coming back from a submerged scraper chain failure. That has been repaired. The unit is ramping up as we speak,” he said.
Planned maintenance would continue, and there was a possibility of lower stages of load shedding this week.
De Ruyter said Eskom would be going to market as soon as Monday to get independent power producers to add electricity to the grid.
Some have criticised the power utility, accusing it of implementing load shedding in order to fast-track the switch to independent power producers.
“We will be going to market as soon as tomorrow to make sure we can tap into the electricity that is available right now. We can get about 1 000 megawatts from available generation capacity.
There is a risk, and we need to prepare for this risk – hence the urgent need to replenish reserves to avoid further stages of load shedding.”
Oberholzer said their diesel and dam reserves were running low.
“Every time we lose a generator, it means we have to run (an) emergency. The dam and diesel levels remain critically low, and these must be replenished as a matter of urgency.
Without fuel for these, an additional six stages of load shedding would be required.”
Chief financial officer Calib Cassim has made available an additional R500 million to purchase more diesel.
De Ruyter said liquidity to buy diesel was an issue.
“In the past five months of this financial year, we have already burned our way through R7.7 billion worth of diesel, which is just about the budget for the whole year.”
Energy expert Professor David Walwyn said ongoing load shedding was resulting in Eskom losing customers.
“Customers who are desperate for power will find other ways to get it. It is going to impact their market. If we continue, Eskom will lose customers, particularly big customers who will find alternatives.
Big consumers are just cutting ties, saying we’ll do this on our own. Already Eskom (has) shed about 4GW of consumption, which is a lot.”
The University of Pretoria's Professor Heinrich Bohlmann said the current investment was a drop in the ocean in terms of what was needed.
“Investments we've seen (are) small amounts in the overall scheme of what needs to be done to get renewables online. Most renewable projects are also relatively small in terms of the generation it needs to replace.”
He said that ideally South Africa would have a mix of energy generation.
“A mix is what we've always tried to accomplish. Even the dominance of coal is designed to be reduced. Long term, that's ideally going to reduce to 40% or 50%.
“Nuclear is the dark horse – incredibly expensive, but arguably the most efficient form of power.
If we are thinking longer term, it would be interesting to see if nuclear is part of the mix. It goes in and out of favour with policymakers,” he said.
Cape Times