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One year later: Load shedding in South Africa hits bleak milestone
Monday (4 September) marks almost a full year since permanent load shedding came into effect – and the last time the country saw a full week without load shedding.
This is according to the latest Power Blackout Statistics (PBS) compiled by independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan.
According to Jordaan, week 35 of 2022 – ending 4 September 2022 – was the last time South Africa experienced a full week without any load shedding.
Tuesday, 6 September 2022, was the start of what would eventually become a record string of daily blackouts.
Over the last 365 days, South Africa has experienced a total of 360 days of load shedding, with the only breaks seen in October 2022 and March 2023.
While South Africans typically track total load shedding hours to gauge the severity of the outages, the fact that the country has been in a near-permanent state of load shedding since September 2022 makes it difficult to tell how bad things are.
This is because load shedding stages vary greatly. A full day of stage 1 load shedding and a full day of stage 6 load shedding will show the same total hours of load shedding (24 hours), even though the latter is significantly worse.
Jordaan’s data thus looks at load shedding in terms of blackout hours – the time South Africans actually spend without any power within a load shedding window.
2023 has by far been the worst year of load shedding on record, having already passed total blackout hours higher than the past decade combined.
So far, the country has been left in the dark for the equivalent of 57 full days of outages (1,368 hours) in the 5,283 hours of load shedding that has been in effect.
Unfortunately, things are expected to continue on this path, with another 27 full days of blackouts expected for the remainder of the year. If this projection follows, though, South Africa would have spent nearly a quarter of the year without any power.
As South Africa enters the warmer spring and summer months, however, the situation is at risk of worsening.
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokopga noted this weekend that load shedding has pushed to higher stages – stage 4 and stage 5 – due to power utility Eskom having to ramp up its planned maintenance.
The planned maintenance schedule is often truncated during winter to help the utility meet higher demand, but has to return to normal during summer to ensure that units don’t break down.
Planned maintenance has increased from around 3,000MW in winter to around 6,000MW currently, accounting for the equivalent of three stages of load shedding.
Making matters worse, the summer fee structure has also kicked in, which will also boost demand.
Major industries often curb production during winter to avoid the higher winter tariffs but return to previous production levels when tariffs normalise.
Add the fact the warmer weather makes power stations and generating units run hotter – and thus more prone to outages and losses – the coming months are expected to be particularly painful when it comes to load shedding, with Eskom already seeing multiple units fail.
Hope exists
The power utility said in August that the return of three units at Kusile is ahead of schedule and may see around 3,000MW return to the grid before year-end. In addition, new generation projects will also start coming online in the coming months.
However, these positive developments – if all goes well and on-schedule – are only enough to mitigate load shedding, not eliminate it completely.
The group has maintained that the solution to load shedding lies not only on the supply side but also on the demand side and has urged South Africans at large to help mitigate their power usage, especially during peak hours.
source:One year later: Load shedding in South Africa hits bleak milestone – BusinessTech
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