Load Shedding set to continue for years

Cyril Ramaphosa’s ambition to be reelected as party leader at the forthcoming ANC elective conference would be hampered by the problems at Eskom. The utility anticipates load-shedding to continue until 2027.

In the last eleven months, South Africa has encountered daily electrical supply restrictions, which have contributed to the country’s sluggish economic development.

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Eskom has also failed to prevent sabotage at many of its power plants.

power outages will persist.
Eskom has had chronic power supply shortages over the previous eleven months, with a record number of days and consecutive days of planned power outages scheduled for 2022-23.

Ebrahim Harvey, a political analyst, asserts that groups within the ANC who reject Ramaphosa are likely behind sabotage, since they are attempting to reestablish profitable corruption networks.

Harvey said, “Eskom has been a war for decades, and African nationalists within the ANC have exploited Eskom as a cash cow for years.”

The medium-term adequacy assessment issued by Eskom on 30 October portrays an alarming picture of the utility’s ongoing internal difficulties.

The purpose of the paper is to “evaluate, over a five-year period, the risks of an electrical supply deficit in South Africa based on anticipated changes in demand and generating capacity.”

According to the study, the utility has difficulty executing scheduled repairs at power plants owing to internal issues and sabotage.

“The issue will deteriorate as the plant performance of Eskom’s fleet continues to decline, power plants close, and demand increases.”

There is a negative forecast for 2023 to 2027, according to the most recent assessment, since the utility’s fleet shows no evidence of enhanced generating capacity. According to the assessment, the system will not be able to fulfil demand in its entirety.

THE LEVEL OF SABOTAGE GROWS

According to sources probing Eskom’s sabotage charges, management at the Kusile and Tutuka power plants is allegedly protecting criminals and facilitating the alleged sabotage.

According to the patterns uncovered by the investigators, the suspected saboteurs were given access to areas of the power plants by management in order to damage plant equipment, and then shared in the profits from the repair work with high management.

“It is apparent that management is involved in these situations, since some workers are being protected regardless of the severity of the crime. We have informed the Hawks and Eskom that there is foul play involving Tutuka management and contractors who were caught with equipment, but were protected; we are also investigating the Tutuka management,” a source said.

In the last several years, Eskom has enlisted the assistance of the Special Investigative Unit and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) to examine many high-profile events and continuing personnel difficulties.

The Hawks and Eskom Group Security arrested four workers at two power facilities in Mpumalanga last month in connection with two thefts committed by Eskom staff.

A worker at the Tutuka power plant was apprehended on October 17 for allegedly stealing 10 barrels of hydraulic oil from storage facilities.

“The value of the stolen hydraulic oil barrels exceeds R800,000.” Eskom stated in a statement that the detained employee appeared before the Standerton magistrate’s court and was remanded in jail pending a bail application.

Three cleaning contractors at the Matla power facility were detained on October 17 on suspicion of stealing copper wires. The wires were concealed in a garbage container.

The Hawks and the internal security team of Eskom are investigating a number of suspected crimes, including the theft of coal, fuel, cables, bomb threats, fraud and corruption, sabotage, and others.

The investigating team’s sources claimed that they had discovered proof that diesel worth R200,000 was taken from the Kriel power station in Mpumalanga, where a truck driver was recently detained for conspiring with a clerk to steal the fuel with the assistance of the station’s management.

“The receiving officer allowed the transporter to leave after weighing the diesel cargo during the night shift, and a new vehicle would deliver the gasoline. Now it will be reported as having left the station, and Eskom will pay for the load, but it will never reach its destination.

“When maintenance time arrives, the fuel is nowhere to be found. Now Eskom must pay again, which is sanctioned by management, and no one gets fired. We are now investigating these situations,” a Hawks source said.

Sikonathi Mantshantsha, a spokeswoman for Eskom, said that the company was continuing to investigate thefts inside the organisation and would “guarantee that those found get the penalty they deserve.”

ESKOM WILL LOSE REVENUE

Stolen equipment and other acts of sabotage have hindered Eskom’s capacity to perform maintenance, causing the nation to experience unscheduled outages.

The newly constituted board of Eskom urged the department of public enterprises under Minister Pravin Gordhan to recognise that load-shedding would continue for the next 18 months.

The analysis anticipates that energy consumption would decline by 0.3% per year on average under the low-demand scenario, but the moderate-high scenario predicts a 1% average annual growth rate tied to a GDP growth rate of roughly 1.9%.

According to the report, Eskom’s outages have tended to increase, which suggests that its reliability maintenance programme, which aims to conduct deep refurbishment and maintenance to improve the performance of the coal fleet in particular, “may not be producing the desired results” in its current form.

“To complete the prognosis, these demand projections are compared with plant performance assumptions, and they account for the anticipated reduction of Eskom’s production fleet by 5,288 MW between 2023 and 2027 due to facilities reaching their turbine dead-stop dates,” the paper said.

The analysis concluded that by the end of 2027, Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF) would fluctuate between an average low of 58% and an average high of 67%.

In the next five years, power outages will intensify, according to the analysis. In the worst-case scenario, the supply deficit would increase from 18 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2023 to 30TWh in2027, the report said.

Eskom estimates that an energy gap of 18TWh is similar to the generating output of Matla power plant at full load. The station’s installed capacity is around 3,500 MW.

“If additional generation capacity, as outlined in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, is implemented as planned, it will help narrow the supply gap to about 8TWh in2027, but the study indicates that the anticipated pace of implementation of approximately 10GW of new generation capacity (much of which will be from renewables) will not be sufficient to fully alleviate the supply constraints.”

“Given that the EAF is the largest lever to system adequacy and the statistically established trend implies a further lower trajectory, it is imperative that the existing maintenance regime be reevaluated to enhance its effectiveness,” states the paper.