South Africa “does not have a shortage of generation capacity”
South Africa does not have a shortage of generation capacity, says the Department of Energy, but a shortage of available generation capacity.
Delivering the keynote address on behalf of the minister of energy at the Africa Energy Indaba in Sandton on 17 February 2015, Dr. Wolsey Barnard, the department’s acting director general, said that the gap between energy supply and demand is small because so much of the capacity is off-line for maintenance or repair.
Eskom has a total generation capacity of 43 400 MW of which 4800 MW is currently unavailable. The utility holds 2000 MW as operating reserve and a further 8000 MW as an “unplanned outage assumption”, leaving 28 600 MW actually available.
Barnard said that the department’s focus is getting the off-line generation back in service as soon as possible so as to increase the reserve margin to safer levels and to prevent loadshedding.
South Africa does not have a shortage of generation capacity, says the Department of Energy, but a shortage of available generation capacity.
Delivering the keynote address on behalf of the minister of energy at the Africa Energy Indaba in Sandton on 17 February 2015, Dr. Wolsey Barnard, the department’s acting director general, said that the gap between energy supply and demand is small because so much of the capacity is off-line for maintenance or repair.
Eskom has a total generation capacity of 43 400 MW of which 4800 MW is currently unavailable. The utility holds 2000 MW as operating reserve and a further 8000 MW as an “unplanned outage assumption”, leaving 28 600 MW actually available.
Barnard said that the department’s focus is getting the off-line generation back in service as soon as possible so as to increase the reserve margin to safer levels and to prevent loadshedding.