Load shedding is still with us

Load shedding is still with us. It said although it carried out maintenance at power stations, load shedding will remain a risk when businesses and industry return to work next week.

Power utility Eskom says its coal stocks have improved over the festive season but the country’s power system is still under pressure.

Yesterday, spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said there would be a briefing on the status of the system and what is being done to handle load shedding next week.

Last month, CEO Phakamani Hadebe told Joburg-based Radio 702 there were chances the debt-laden utility might start stage one load shedding from 15 January, as businesses that are its big users reopen after the year-end break.

Phasiwe echoed this yesterday, saying part of the reason there was no load shedding over the festive period was because the power grid was under less pressure.

In late November and early December, the utility repeatedly started nationwide electricity rationing due to difficulties in completing scheduled and unscheduled maintenance at power plants, as well as damage to power transmission lines linking South Africa to Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam.

“Eskom continues to have coal shortages, but there is an improvement in terms of where they are,” Phasiwe said. Most of SA’s electricity is produced from coal-fired power stations.

In mid-November, in response to a parliamentary question, the department of public enterprises said 12 power stations, not including Kusile and Medupi, did not have available the minimum number of days’ capacity of coal stored.

Phasiwe said coal stockpile capacity has improved slightly to nearly 30 days. At a briefing in December, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said Eskom was working to increase stockpile capacity to 33 days.

Hadebe told the portfolio committee on public enterprises in November the utility had secured new contracts to grow its coal supply. – NEWS24

Source: Daily Sun