Load shedding forecast for December

Eskom has apologised to the country for the inconvenience of the last few weeks caused by load shedding.

Chief executive Tshediso Matona said with the system being tight, any abnormal event pushes them into load shedding.

“The power system will be severely constrained and will only begin to ease once at least two units at Medupi and one unit at Kusile are running. That will take between 12 and 18 months,” said Matona.

During summer, the grid experiences an all-day ‘Table Mountain’ profile and this demand only reduces at 10pm.

With the reserve margin being low, Matona said that they do not have the capacity to meet the demand, necessitating the need for load shedding.

He said a lot of risks materialised on Thursday last week, some of which were not in their control while others were.

That explains the heavy load shedding over the weekend moving from stage 2 to stage 3 on Friday and Saturday.

“The main contributing factor was the inability to source sufficient diesel for the open cycle gas turbines,” said Matona.

He said Eskom is working closely with PetroSA and other suppliers to secure diesel availability up to middle January.

“The week ahead will be very tight with a medium risk of load shedding and a high risk on Thursday and Friday, December 11 and 12.”

With everyone clearly worried about having no power for their Christmas dinner, Matona said the prognosis for load shedding will be low to medium after December 15 up to mid-January 2015, should no additional risks occur on the system.

Electricity demand will decrease with industries closing down for the festive season.

“We will continue to do maintenence on our power stations. The system will remain constrained, but manageable.”

“Eskom will provide daily status updates and forecasts,” said Matona.