Eskom says South Africans can have a no load shedding summer if it manages to keep unplanned losses at power stations below 13 000MW.
The Generation Operational Recovery Plan has successfully kept loadshedding suspended, achieving 191 consecutive days of uninterrupted power supply since 26 March 2024.
“Operational efficiency has met summer expectations, with unplanned outages averaging 11 181MW over the past week, compared to 14 743MW during the same period last year, marking an improvement of 3 562MW.As of today, Eskom’s available generation capacity is 30 725MW, with an evening peak forecast of 26 239MW for 04 October 2024,” Eskom said in a statement.
Additionally, a total of approximately 4 430MW of generating capacity is scheduled to return to service by Monday, 07 October 2024.
The power utility announced in August its outlook for the summer period, 01 September 2024 to 31 March 2025, that detailed a likely scenario of a load shedding-free summer outlook due to structural generation improvements.
Eskom talks about load shedding stage 2
This is according to the power utility’s Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) Dan Marokane said worse case scenerio was Stage 2.
“Our view is that if we keep the unplanned losses below 13 000MW, we should have a load shedding free summer. At worst, we anticipate that in the event that unplanned losses reaches up to 15 500MW, we will at most experience Stage 2 [load shedding], ” said the Eskom boss.
“The performance over the last four months has consistently hovered around unplanned losses of 12 000MW. Our power station managers and our teams are very alive to that, their focus is on controlling unplanned losses and should we stay below 13 000MW, we should have a comfortable summer,” Marokane explained.
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