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This graph shows the hourly load shedding distribution during 2022
Unplanned outages also increased in 2022, making it a particularly dark year for most South Africans.
Photo: iStock
Load shedding has been a constant struggle in South Africa since 2007, but if you feel as though 2022 was the worst year yet, you’re not wrong.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) released annual statistics on South Africa’s load shedding situation during the first half of 2022.
Power generation report 2022
The power generation statistics span 1 January to 30 June 2022, while rolling blackouts and energy availability factor (EAF) data are provided until 30 September 2022.
As per the report, January was the only month we didn’t have to deal with any outages, while February started out with stage 2 which was later reduced to stage 1, before a brief jump to stage 2 again.
And it all went downhill from there.
Load shedding by month
Stage 3 and stage 4 were implemented in during the second week of March, but the bulk was still stage 2.
In April, we still had stage 2 blackouts predominantly, with just over a week of stage 3 and nearly two weeks of stage 4.
May was the first month in 2022 when we had load shedding for the entire month, bar the first and last few days.
June started off well with stage 2 outages only returning towards the end of the month. This was quickly ramped up to stage 4, followed by stage 6 – the first 6 000 MW shedding of the year.
While August was a breeze, the graph for July and September below speaks for itself.
In fact, based on information released by EskomSePush, South Africans crossed the 100-days-of-rolling-blackouts threshold in September – just over 2 400 hours.
Meanwhile, unplanned outages increased in 2022, as the Eskom fleet EAF continued its downward trend in 2022, with an average of 59.4%.
The average EAF was 61.7% in 2021 and 65% in 2020, making 2022 the “most load shedding intensive year yet”, particularly during July and September.
In fact, we had more load shedding downtime during the month of September, more than the entire 2020 combined.
In addition, 2022’s stage 6 hassles surpassed those of 2019, the very first year Eskom implemented stage 6 outages in South Africa.
NOW READ: ‘2022 most intensive load shedding year to date’ – CSIR
