Eskom struggling to meet electricity demand

Eskom is struggling to meet South Africa’s electricity demand, but the company said there is currently no serious risk of load-shedding.

This morning Eskom informed its staff that its generation tactical command centre (GTCC) was activated “due to a shortage of capacity to meet the demand today”.

Eskom has also requested that its generation facilities refrain from any risky operations throughout the day.

Eskom told MyBroadband that the system is tight today and the purpose of activating the GTCC is to manage the risks on the system.

The GTCC, Eskom said, will ensure that the company is in a position to meet demand, and to do forward planning to ensure that the system risks are mitigated.

“Presently, with the non-commercial units – Medupi 02 and Kusile 03 – running and expected units returning from outage; in addition with open cycle gas turbines availability and other levers, we do not satisfy the criteria for early warning for load-shedding,” Eskom said.

Eskom’s no load-shedding plan

In April, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan revealed Eskom’s plan to fight load-shedding in South Africa.

Gordhan said Eskom’s goal is to ensure there will be no load-shedding, but admitted there is a lot of hard work ahead for the company.

If there is load-shedding going forward, he said, the aim is that it will only be stage 1 load-shedding.

Gordhan went on to say that Eskom has a “winter plan” in place which will ensure there is enough electricity during the cold season in South Africa.

Now read: No more load-shedding from today – Eskom’s plan