Load shedding: Who to believe?

When Stage 6 load shedding came to bite unexpectedly this past weekend, many South Africans frustratedly pointed fingers at various politicians, asking if their assurances that load shedding would by now (or soon) be something of the past were misleading.

Political talk is cheap, many would say, but the one politician who has positioned himself as the hands-on, technically-minded leader of the energy action plan to end load shedding is Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, an engineer.

Read:
‘We’re beginning to turn the load shedding corner’ – Ramokgopa [Oct 2023]
Load shedding to remain at high levels over next five years – Eskom [Nov 2023]

Ramokgopa speaks the language of those at power station level, where he regularly visits, and he conveys it during his regular briefings to the media and, by extension, to the South African public – as he did during a hastily convened media briefing on Friday, shortly after the shock announcement that the country would once again be plunged into darkness for up to 10 hours a day.

And even then, Ramokgopa insisted that things were looking better. 

The trend is upward. There will be temporary setbacks along the way, was the message he sent.

But is his optimism well-founded? Can business owners and decision-makers, parents who must create conducive conditions for children to study, and doctors who plan surgery rely on his view?

Energy availability

The crucial measure on the Eskom dashboard is the energy availability factor (EAF), which merely states how much of Eskom’s generation capacity is available to supply electricity to satisfy the fluctuating demand. 

The main components that make up the EAF are the Planned Capacity Load Factor (PCLF), in other words, how much generation capacity has been taken offline for planned maintenance, and the Unplanned Capacity Load Factor (UCLF), the percentage of generation capacity offline because of unexpected breakdowns.

The Eskom system operator, the office that continuously manages the power system and is tasked with keeping supply and demand in balance to prevent a national blackout, publishes a report every week that shows, among other things, the average PCLF, UCLF and overall EAF of the Eskom fleet for the past week. It also shows the average for the calendar year to date and the average for the whole of the previous year. 

The latest available such report is for week 46 of 2023, ended 19 November:

From this, it is clear that the EAF for 2023, with only a few weeks left, is at least three percentage points lower than 2022.

Not long ago, the system operator increased the base assumption for its 52-week forecast by 1 000MW to 16 000MW, and the latest version shows a shortage of more than 2 000MW for every week of the next 52 weeks in both its planned risk level and its likely risk scenario. The dashboard is all red.

Available energy, and energy that is not available …

When asked how, in light of this data, he can say the trend is upwards, Ramokgopa on Friday argued that comparing the current EAF with that of 2022 does not take into account:

1. The fact that Koeberg Unit 1 was out of commission for the whole year, representing 920MW; or
2. The absence from the generating fleet of about 2 400MW of generation capacity from the three units at Kusile that are only now coming back online (after the collapse of the flue gas duct on Unit 1 in October last year also damaged that of units 2 and 3).

Together, these units represent more than 3 000MW of generation capacity, roughly three stages of load shedding, implying that we would have been at Stage 3 if these units were indeed generating electricity.

Read:
Risk of total shutdown of Eskom’s Koeberg continues to increase
SA says Kusile coal plant to revive capacity this year

Ramokgopa seems to imply that including these major events in the EAF comparison is wrong – the proverbial comparison of apples with oranges.

But what is the aim of the comparison? And what would be the purpose of excluding these units?

For the system operator, it is all about risk. This office cannot rely on the hope that a certain unit will return online on a certain day. It often pans out differently, and then the system operator must make other plans to keep the lights on.

Like declaring Stage 6.

Determining risk

South Africans are keeping a close eye on these numbers for the same reason – to determine their risk; their risk of failing to produce the orders the factory accepted, of incurring penalties on the job that is delayed because of work interruptions due to rolling power outages, of having to keep someone alive when the electricity driving the oxygen flow is gone, or having a child study for matric without light.

The consumer and the system operator are, therefore, aligned in this regard.

And the minister? Is his true purpose to make the government look good? To create the impression that the energy action plan is bearing fruit?

Read:
Eskom didn’t really keep the lights on because of the rugby
SA’s power crisis will continue until 2025

His argument for the exclusion of the Koeberg and Kusile units becomes even more flimsy when one takes into account that the Koeberg outage should have been completed years ago, and even when it started in December last year, it was scheduled for six months, according to Eskom’s own press release at the time. In reality, it took 11 months.

The collapse at Kusile should never have happened. While Eskom’s investigation has not yet been completed, it is quite clear that the deposits on the inside of the duct became too heavy for the structure, which led to the collapse. Why was this not detected and dealt with before it led to the loss of all three units? Some reports suggest that it was communicated to management, but management ignored the warnings from engineers.

Read/listen:
Eskom outlook: Are we in for a dark December?
The inconvenient truth about Kusile

And if Ramokgopa’s argument is accepted, why not exclude other units as well?

Whenever something untoward happens that deprives Eskom and the country of some more generation capacity, just exclude it from the numbers; then surely the trend will look better.

In the recent System Adequacy Report from the system operator published at the end of October, looking at the supply of electricity versus the demand up to 2028, the office says: “The study indicates that, if the [Eskom] plant performance decline is not arrested and new generation capacity is not rolled out timeously, the situation will worsen as the demand grows.”

The following graphic from the report shows the downward EAF trajectory and a high and low EAF scenario:

The office continues: “However, the evidence shows a trend of outages that continues to increase, thereby decreasing system EAF.

“Given that the EAF is the biggest lever to system adequacy and that the historical trends reflect a downward trajectory, it is crucial that the current maintenance regime be reviewed to improve its efficacy.”

South Africans will be well advised to take their guidance about the nature of load shedding going forward from the office aligned with their need to consider future risks and take whatever measures they can to mitigate them. 

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