SA is one step away from Stage 8 load shedding as breakdowns, cash shortages lead to disaster
Kyle Cowan
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter is pictured in profile during a media briefing.
News24/File
- When Stage 6 load shedding was implemented this week, it came on the back of 11 units at power stations breaking down.
- Eskom presided over losses of more than half of its generating capacity – due to breakdowns and a continuing push to undertake crucial maintenance.
- The resulting capacity shortage has left South Africa closer to Stage 8 load shedding than ever before.
South Africa came closer to Stage 8 load shedding than it has ever been this week, as breakdowns and a lack of cash coupled with high levels of planned maintenance created the perfect storm at Eskom.
Senior officials at the power utility are desperately trying to avoid introducing Stage 8 rotational power cuts – no electricity for 12 to 14 hours a day – for the first time, according to an Eskom official who spoke to News24 on condition of anonymity. Eskom has had to scrape the bottom of its cash reserves to find rands for more diesel to run the expensive open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs), the official added. But the money is fast running out.
In November 2022, Eskom chief operations officer Jan Oberholzer gave the country a frank but alarming assessment. The power utility had already spent more than R12 billion on diesel to stave off the worst levels of load shedding in the current 2022-'23 financial year.
The financial year runs from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, which means Eskom had exhausted its diesel budget for the year in less than seven months.
Some more cash has been found, but even at conservative diesel-burning rates, Eskom needs another R6 billion until the start of the new financial year when it will have the budget again.
This perfect storm – a lack of cash, nearly unprecedented levels of breakdowns across the coal fleet and high levels of planned maintenance – pushed Eskom to implement Stage 6 load shedding this week.
This has been done chiefly to ensure that it has enough capacity to replenish dam levels at pumped storage schemes Ingula and Drakensberg, which are used during peak power demand periods in the mornings and evenings, to prevent levels of load shedding higher than Stage 6.
Pumped storage schemes generate electricity using water flow from an upper to a lower dam – but the water must be pumped back to the upper dam in off-peak periods to ensure the stations can be used again during peak periods – every morning and every evening.
The most recent round of Stage 6 power cuts was marked with silence from the Eskom's executive and board, who over the past three years normally held immediate briefings to explain the situation to the country.
News24 asked Eskom to explain why no briefing had yet taken place by Friday, days after Stage 6 load shedding was implemented, but no response had been received at the time of writing.
When Eskom experiences a high number of breakdowns, it is usually not able to pump water late at night, meaning higher levels of load shedding must be implemented across the board.
This will give Eskom more capacity to avoid a system overload and national blackout, which would occur if electricity demand was higher than Eskom could supply.
Eskom has around 80 units at its power stations across the country, 11 of which broke down in the 24-hour period between Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
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By Wednesday afternoon, Eskom confirmed that 18 041 megawatts were unavailable due to breakdowns, while 5 739MW were offline for planned maintenance.
This meant that 23 780MW, or 59% of Eskom's generation capacity, were unavailable for several hours this week.
Eskom presides over roughly 40 000MW of capacity, with 6 000MW in emergency power generation capacity, which includes the pumped storage schemes and the expensive diesel-burning open cycle gas turbines.
Eskom managed to bring 2 540MW back online from the 11 units that tripped between Tuesday and Wednesday – meaning Eskom came dangerously close to implementing Stage 8 load shedding, as the 18 041MW unplanned losses were reported after the units were brought back online.
Behind the breakdowns
A closer examination of the reasons for the high level of breakdowns reveals the same problems Eskom has been struggling to overcome – boiler tube leaks, coal mill issues and vacuum issues.
These are avoidable and repairable problems that Eskom cannot fully prevent because it does not have the generation capacity in reserve needed to allow the units to be taken offline for extended periods.
Eskom is also refusing to relinquish its extensive planned maintenance schedule during which officials are attempting to provide maintenance desperately needed on units that were run too hard for too long. This leads to increased unreliability.
At the core of the most recent implementation of Stage 6 load shedding is Eskom's three most important power stations – Medupi, Kusile and Koeberg, the only nuclear power station in its fleet.
Maintenance and major breakdowns at these three stations can be blamed for five of the current six stages of load shedding, which represents a combined capacity loss of 4 820MW.
Kusile units 1, 2 and 3 are offline as a result of a flue duct collapse in October 2022 – making the first three units inoperable. Each unit is capable of roughly 800MW.
The flue duct – basically a massive, nine-metre diameter exhaust ducting of unit 1, in operation since 2017 – collapsed as a result of slurry build-up.
This is now also preventing the safe operation of unit 2 and 3 as all three units share the same 220-metre-tall chimney – removing 3 200MW from the grid.
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Eskom is currently working on solutions to the problem, but News24 understands that there are significant engineering challenges to resolving the slurry build-up inside the ducting that collapsed, with no time estimation for a repair yet made public.
A fire at Kusile unit 5, just weeks before it was due to be synchronised to the grid in September 2022, has rendered the unit inoperable – further removing an anticipated 800MW from the grid.
The results of an investigation into the cause of the fire are not public, and News24 understands that work is continuing to determine the source of the blaze.
In August 2021, Medupi unit 4 exploded because of human error – removing 720MW from the grid overnight. The unit will likely take up to two years to repair.
Meanwhile, Koeberg unit 1 has been offline since early December after running for 407 days. The unit will undergo major refurbishment over the next six months as part of a R20-billion project to extend the life of the nuclear power station by another 20 years.
Hot air
As Eskom has scrambled to avoid Stage 8 load shedding, political leaders have undermined and misled the country over the issues at the power utility.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, who will soon have control of Eskom if ANC policy is implemented, made misleading claims about the nature of Eskom's capacity constraints in an interview on broadcaster eNCA on Friday.
Several times over the past few months, Mantashe falsely claimed that Eskom was allowing generation capacity to "stand idle", when in fact the generation units had broken down, necessitating extensive and costly emergency repairs.
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He repeated the claim on Friday while also saying that Eskom needed to "introspect" on whether or not it needed new capacity when in reality Eskom had repeatedly stated in public and during meetings with senior politicians, since at least December 2019, that it needed 4 000 to 6 000MW urgently to prevent load shedding.
Mantashe's department has the final say on the procurement of additional generation capacity, which means this responsibility does not rest with Eskom.
Mantashe also claimed that load shedding could be resolved within six to 12 months, which appears to be a cynical claim to take credit for work already undertaken by Eskom, which should show improvements to generation capacity shortages within the same time frame.
This includes innovative land lease deals in Mpumalanga and the lifting of the embedded generation cap, which has encouraged private companies to pursue construction of renewable energy sources that will wheel electricity over Eskom's grid.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana also said the problems at Eskom were "inexplicable" when the reasons for Eskom's capacity shortages were clear and had been communicated openly by Eskom for years.
Meanwhile, International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor said load shedding was like "an oppositional attack" on South Africa, echoing widely condemned comments by Mantashe last year that Eskom was "agitating for the overthrow of the state" by not resolving load shedding.
In effect, Mantashe accused Eskom officials of treason, and has not withdrawn or apologised for the unfounded statements that led to the resignation of Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter.
The reasons for Eskom's current capacity shortage are a combination of the effects of major corruption and state capture, as well as successive blunders by the ANC government since 1998, when it failed to start building new power stations soon enough.
In recent years, it has refused to recognise the need for an immediate switch to renewables at an urgent pace – mostly because of the opposition to breaking up Eskom's monopoly in electricity generation and reliance on coal by a handful of powerful ANC leaders, such as Mantashe.
News24 has previously reported in detail on the missteps over the past two decades as being the reasons for Eskom's problems, which were created by ANC policy – and corruption.