Eskom hopes to keep load-shedding at stage 2 during winter as SA marks 30 days of no planned power cuts

Eskom is hoping to keep load-shedding capped at stage 2 during winter as the utility marks a significant milestone of 30 days without power cuts, but the country is “not out of the woods” yet.

Eskom's new group CEO Dan Marokane, who started on 1 March, led a briefing on the state of the grid and the power supply outlook over winter at Eskom's Megawatt Park offices on Friday afternoon. 

Marokane was joined by Eskom's heads of generation and distribution Bheki Nxumalo, group executive Monde Bala and CFO Calib Cassim. 

Reflecting on performance last winter, Marokane said that this remained “within the forecast frequency range” of stages 2-4 anticipated at the time.

He noted that the frequency and intensity of load-shedding over the past year has declined, and the utility spent 50% less on burning diesel during April 2024 compared to the same period last year.

Eskom's energy availability factor sits at 61%.

Speaking on this year's forecast, he said: “For winter 2024 ... the likely scenario from our assumption is that load-shedding will be maintained within stage 2 at most. In the extreme case where the unreliability increases, that component may go occasionally [to] stage 5 but we really think that on the basis of what we see, the performance of the fleet, most [likely] load-shedding will stay within stage 2.

“This is on the back of a decrease in terms of the baseline unreliability capacity reduction of 1,000MW which is what we use for our baseline assumption. Over the winter period, work continues and we are targeting to reduce the unplanned losses by a further 1.7GW.”

Marokane attributed the load-shedding milestone to a “culmination of interventions that started a year ago”.

“And to that extent, we wanted to make sure that that moment does not go unnoticed. It is important that we build on it, that the confidence of our teams increases from that perspective and in that way we can move towards doing this as a daily routine,” he said.

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