\u201cBut let\u2019s be careful in our analysis. The availability of generator units always improves in winter with less maintenance and lower partial load losses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year was a notable exception to this historical trend, thanks to an unprotected strike of Eskom workers<\/a><\/strong> that plunged South Africa into stage 6 load-shedding.<\/p>\n It took Eskom the latter half of 2022 and the start of 2023 to dig itself out of the hole the strike pushed it into.<\/p>\n Eberhard referred to fellow energy analyst Chris Yelland\u2019s most recent chart of Eskom\u2019s weekly EAF to illustrate his point.<\/p>\n Yelland explained that the EAF for the 2023 calendar year-to-date is 53.66%, where it was 59.44% for the same period last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year [remains] worse than before, despite the usual winter improvements in EAFs,\u201d Eberhard stated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not yet seen a sustained trend over six months or more of improved performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Stated differently, this year\u2019s line (in solid grey) must cross back above last year\u2019s trend line (in dashed orange) before there is reason to truly celebrate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can expect another decline in the second half of the year, and the EAF target of 65% will probably not be met. Not being negative, just realistic,\u201d Eberhard said.<\/p>\n Although Eskom probably won\u2019t reach its 65% EAF goal, Eberhard said we could see an uptick in availability if three generating units at Kusile return to service as promised.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore we bring out the champagne to celebrate the imminent end of power cuts in South Africa, we need to track the trend over months in Eskom plant breakdowns and whether we\u2019re adding new power generation fast enough,\u201d said Eberhard.<\/p>\n He said that South Africa is experiencing reduced load-shedding for several reasons.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, residual demand that Eskom needs to meet is lower than expected \u2014 and significantly lower than last year,\u201d Eberhard explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIndustrial demand is down with higher winter tariffs and energy-intensive kit off for maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n Residual electricity demand is also lower because self-dispatched wind energy is much higher, sometimes shaving up to 2GW \u2014 equivalent to two full stages of load-shedding.<\/p>\n \u201cDistributed solar is also beginning to make an impact,\u201d Eberhard said.<\/p>\n \u201cPower cuts have also reduced because Eskom has more generation available, in part because of lower partial load losses in colder winter temperatures, less plant off for maintenance and apparently some marginal improvements at some power stations.\u201d<\/p>\n Another factor is that Eskom has been running its open-cycle gas turbine peaking power stations hard.<\/p>\n Eberhard said over R30 billion of unbudgeted funds is being spent on diesel.<\/p>\n \u201cHow will this be funded?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Eskom’s winter load-shedding hasn’t been as bad as it could have been, but energy expert Anton Eberhard warns not to celebrate too soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":498791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[63411,181,35,84835,8487],"class_list":["post-498789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-anton-eberhard","tag-eskom","tag-headline","tag-kgosientsho-ramokgopa","tag-load-shedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498795,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498789\/revisions\/498795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Eskom-weekly-EAF-2021W1-2023W25.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nNow read: Warning over big costs for private power<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"