Load shedding: Now it’s too hot says Electricity Minister

First it was the cold weather – and increased demand for electricity which was blamed for long periods of load shedding; now, according to Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the warmer temperatures have made it challenging for some Eskom generating units to operate optimally.

Eskom announced yesterday that until further notice Stage 2 load shedding would be implemented daily from 5am to 4pm, then it would escalate to stage 4.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena noted changes in load shedding stages were due to further improvement in generation capacity.

Load losses

According to Ramokgopa, struggling generating units had resulted in load losses which totalled nearly 6 000 megawatts over the past few days and the Matimba plant generation was affected most.

“The units are not giving us the amount of megawatts that they should be giving us relative to their design capacity,” he said.

“This is the function of a number of factors. We know when we enter the summer it could be a function of ambient temperature. The hotter it gets, it’s very difficult for some of these units to perform, and Matimba is a prime candidate of partial load losses that are likely going to increase in the more extreme hot periods.

“But it’s something that is receiving attention to ensure that we don’t fall foul of such a situation. A lot of engineering solutions will be required.”

ALSO READ: WATCH: Eskom pushes load shedding to stage 2 until Monday

Warmer temperatures

However, energy analyst Tshepo Kgadima said that if warmer temperatures were an issue “then why was there no load shedding right now in the entire of the Middle East? “He does not know what he is talking about. Warmer weather can never affect a plant and cooler weather cannot optimise or increase the operation of a power plant,” he said.

Kgadima said there were a lot of smelters in the hotter parts of the country and none had broken down because of the heat. “Right now, in the whole of the Middle East it’s the end of summer. Today in Kuwait, it’s probably about 42°C-44°C and there is no load shedding. If you go to Dubai, it’s now maybe around 40°C and there is also no load shedding.

In Doha, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia – same story. And they are not using solar,” he said. “The minister of electricity should restrict himself to policy matters. He should get out of the kitchen. He is unlawfully interfering.”

Energy Action Plan updates

Kgadima added: “Everything that he said in that briefing should have been stated by a qualified engineer with authority from Eskom, but no engineer from Eskom can say such an absurdity because they would not be a registered engineer.”

Kgadima said the chair of the board of Eskom should conduct the press briefings.

“The minister is a politician. He should speak about policy matters, not about operational matters.” Bringing “slight hope”, Ramokgopa noted government was getting closer to ending load shedding revealing that four units at Kusile power station in Mpumalanga were likely to return to the grid by the end of the year and unit four at Kusile was back on the grid.

He said Kusile was central to addressing load shedding and keeping maintenance on track there was worth celebrating. The unit was on a 20 day-outage for planned maintenance.

Ramokgopa said this meant generating capacity would be ramped up by 800MW, resulting in the reduction of one stage of load shedding.

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