Eskom has sufficient generation capacity-Ramokgopa

As South Africa braces itself for some of the coldest winter days yet, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, is confident significant improvements in the power generation system will allow Eskom to handle any additional surges in demand.

While the country has been fortunate to have had a relatively mild winter so far, minimum temperatures are expected to fall below zero in parts of Gauteng and the Western Cape and Eastern Cape from Monday and remain low for the rest of the week. Although this has prompted fears that the cold snap could result in more intensive load shedding experienced in recent weeks, Ramokgopa said on Sunday at a press briefing that the electricity system now had sufficient room to handle even the worst-case demand scenario during peak hours.

"The resolution of the load shedding issue is principally on your generation side. Even if demand were to surge to the worst-case scenario, if these machines were performing at the rate at which we were expecting them to, we shouldn't have a problem. Even if it (demand) gets to 34 000MW or 36 000MW, we shouldn't have a problem," he said.

Originally, at the beginning of winter, the utility forecast a peak in demand of 34 000MW during the winter season. However, so far the highest it had been was 30 800MW on one day earlier this month.

But even with the expected increase in demand as the days get colder this week, the system is expected to be able to handle it.

Presidency official Rudi Dicks, who also attended the briefing on Sunday, said that looking at the week ahead, the peak in demand "in a base case" scenario was expected to hit around 32 000MW, but that the latest "peak forecast puts it just over 30 000MW".

"There is sufficient leeway within the system to deal with the peak and the differentials in the weather and the weather patterns that are there. That is what has been prepared for."

Improvement

Ramokgopa said the significant improvement the country had seen in load shedding in recent weeks was due to a major focus on improving generation to an average output of about 60%, which in turn allowed the energy utility to increase planned maintenance. Eskom was also making use of the expertise of more than 100 private sector experts, with Ramokgopa adding the utility was "beginning to see the fruits of their labour".

"We really want to express our appreciation to the business sector, the private sector for making it possible for us to draw from of the most competent, skilled and experienced people in the energy sector who have been working with us embedded in the various power stations, in the various workstreams that support the work of the recovery of the energy sector."

He said an important benefit of bringing on board the expertise from the private sector was that they were able to "transmit their knowledge and exchange it with the station managers and some of the junior engineers so they are able to run on their own".

"When we come out of this very difficult electricity situation we will be more than confident that we have a cadre of young engineers at Eskom who fully understand how these machines operate and they will have in part accumulated that from the learnings they would have derived from the kind of expertise that we have been able to assemble."

He said the private sector was invested in finding a solution to the energy crisis, adding they would not be able to make an investment case for their companies, or expand their competitiveness or productivity in the absence of one.

Where important strides had been made was in the country's energy availability factor, which was sitting at approximately 60% thanks to improving generation capacity.-Fin24