Cape Town - With growing frustration at the worsening energy crisis and no end in sight to Stage 6 load shedding, the Energy Council of SA and experts warn that the frequency and intensity of load shedding is expected escalate this year.
Council CEO James Mackay said: “Load shedding is not just a product of poor maintenance but rather the first tangible evidence of not having a clear and robust national plan to transition our power sector from the most carbon intensive in the world to a modernised system with appropriate reform to ensure our power system is sustainable, affordable and reliable.”
Mackay said state capture further hollowed out Eskom’s capability and accelerated the collapse in the utility’s fleet performance to the current levels and it would take years and much hard work to put this right and allow unconstrained economic growth.
“We will unfortunately likely continue to cycle between Stage 3 and Stage 6 for at least the next six to seven months. There are a number of units planned to return to service by mid-year including Koeberg, Kusile, Matla and Medupi. This will alleviate some of the pressure but is dependent on Eskom delivering on schedule,” Mackay said.
Independent energy expert Hilton Trollip said that Stage 8 load shedding was a likely possibility in the coming weeks/months, especially as the business year starts, with manufacturers beginning to use more power.
“Demand will increase as holidays end and the supply situation will stay similar, meaning a bigger demand-supply gap and hence increased probability of moving to Stage 7 or Stage 8…”
As the year proceeds, Trollip said it is most likely that because demand goes up and energy supply cannot go up, because there were not enough working power stations (and already limited energy supply), load shedding will almost certainly get worse.
“There is some extra supply coming online because of the exemption given to IPPs connecting directly to private sector buyers and some municipalities but that is going to start coming onto the grid very slowly.
“Those will provide some relief because private sector customers with IPPs will sort themselves out but it won’t provide much relief for the public system,” Trollip said.
Trollip added that little to no new energy was coming onto the system via the public managed generation capacity expansion plan, governed by the Integrated Resource Plan and run by the DMRE.
The first substantial supplies will only be coming online in 2024 and 2025, and even this is far short of what is required to get overcome load shedding.
On Thursday, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) granting Eskom an 18.65% tariff increase in April and a further 12.74% hike next year.
Eskom said: “The minimising of load shedding is the highest priority for Eskom and continuous focus at all levels in the organisation is being given…”
Meanwhile, a national shutdown may be looming as on Sunday fed-up residents and political parties took to social media to express their anger over the worsening power outages and the big electricity price hike.
“National Shutdown” was trending on Twitter as angry South Africans vented frustration at disruptions to business, health, service delivery, food wastage and more.
“StandUpSA” was another trend that people were rallying behind, created by Twitter user @khustazm, who said an Eskom protest was in the works and volunteers were coming in huge numbers to organise it. A protest was planned for February 2 from Sunninghill Taxi rank to Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sandton, while plans were also being made to protest in Cape Town.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said the party was also organising a march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House in Joburg on January 25 against the “ANC-engineered crisis”.
EFF leader Julius Malema said, “We are our own liberators; we must remove the ANC from power but even before that, Ramaphosa must fall with immediate effect and failure to do that, we must push him out of office.”
Meanwhile, Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya tweeted that the president has cancelled his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos to attend to the crisis.
“Currently the President is convening a meeting with leaders of political parties represented in parliament, (National Energy Crisis Committee) NECCOM and the Eskom board.”