Eskom silently unleashes stage 8 power cuts — and it could get worse

South Africa was silently slapped with stage 8 power cuts this week and the situation may get worse as winter approaches.

On Thursday during the evening peak, the power utility had energy availability of 23,771MW against power demand of 30,747MW. It then shed 7,072MW, according to its official daily energy generation update.

A single stage of load-shedding requires Eskom to shed up to 1,000MW of electricity, while stage 6, which was implemented this week and again yesterday, needs between 5,001MW and 6,000MW of energy to be shed. Stage 8 requires 7,001 to 8,000MW being cut.

The crunch came just weeks after electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said he did not anticipate significantly higher stages of load-shedding during winter.

“If we don’t get an extremely cold winter and continue to see the current improvements, I don’t anticipate going to higher stages of load-shedding,” the minister said after a visit to Kusile power station last month.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena confirmed that the power utility had shed beyond the 6,000MW limit for stage 6 on Thursday, but said 1,353MW, which is equivalent to more than one stage of load-shedding, had been reduced through other means, including reducing the power to large users.

This winter will get worse because we don't have capacity. Eskom's fleet is unreliable and constantly having breakdowns 

—  Energy expert Lungile Mashele

“We did not [implement stage 8 load-shedding] ... basically we curtailed 1,353MW from those customers on load curtailment and reduced 5,719MW from all other customers, which made up the 7,072MW load,” Mokwena said.

Asked if that did not equate to stage 8 power cuts, Mokwena said: “Load that was reduced, which is the correct terminology, is indeed more than 6,000MW. We refrain from using the terminology because the public becomes confused and thinks we are talking about load reduction that we normally implement when not load-shedding to prevent failing of equipment due to overload.”

Mokwena said it was standard procedure that large customers that have signed up for curtailments get asked to reduce load before Eskom implements any stage of load-shedding.

Energy expert Lungile Mashele said: “We had stage 8 load-shedding. Eskom will of course say they were not load-shedding. However, the manual load-shedding plus interruptible load-shedding and virtual power stations was in excess of 7,000MW.

“This winter will get worse because we don't have capacity. Eskom's fleet is unreliable and constantly having breakdowns,” Mashele said.

On Saturday, Eskom announced it was moving back to stage 6 until further notice after unit 2 at Koeberg power station tripped.

On Friday evening, Eskom sounded alarm bells, stating that the cold front expected from this weekend was anticipated “to further increase the demand for electricity, adding to the capacity constraints, especially at evening peak hours from 5pm until 9pm”.

“At this stage the projections show that there will be a gradual decreasing deficit of available generation versus forecast demand as the week progresses.  However, this is clearly highly dependent on the performance of the generation system over the period,” Eskom told the Sunday Times.

In a statement, Eskom said that “apart from other generation challenges, the current situation is exacerbated by the loss of four major units which are on extended outages. Units 1, 2 and 3 of Kusile Power Station are currently offline as a result of the failure of the Unit 1 flue gas duct on October 22 2022.”

The power utility has indicated that it expects levels of load-shedding to fall around November, when three units at Kusile are expected to return to service.

Another problem for Eskom is Koeberg nuclear station's Unit 1 which is on a long-term outage for maintenance, refuelling and the replacement of the steam generators. It's only expected to return to service in August.

“The unavailability of the three units at Kusile and the unit at Koeberg 1 has removed 3,080MW of capacity from the grid. This is equivalent to three stages of load-shedding,” Eskom said.

At this stage the projections show that there will be a gradual decreasing deficit of available generation versus forecast demand as the week progresses.  However, this is clearly highly dependent on the performance of the generation system over the period

—  Eskom

This comes as Ramokgopa and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan appear to be on different pages over what needs to be done to address South Africa's energy crisis.

Three weeks ago, Gordhan said a full retrofit and refurbishment of the ageing coal-fired fleet of power stations to upgrade them to meet emissions standards would be too costly at around R400bn.

A week ago, Ramokgopa suggested that the lifespan of some of the country's coal-fired power stations should be extended to afford Eskom time to obtain the additional 6,000MW generation capacity it needed.

Gordhan's office declined to respond to questions about the contradictory messages, saying only that the two ministers agreed on many issues, including doing “whatever is possible to limit load-shedding, including the urgent acquisition of additional energy from diverse sources”.

Ramokgopa said that while extending the life of coal-fired power stations was expensive, the crisis has shown that “no option is off the table”.

He said he was taking these suggestions to cabinet at the end of April “for full spectrum consideration” and details would be made public once it had considered and approved his proposals.

“As such extending the life of coal power stations to stabilise base load ought to be considered as an option as well. This option is not to the exclusion of any other options, including new generation,” Ramokgopa said.

Eskom announced on Friday that Bheki Nxumalo had been appointed head of generation, with immediate effect.

Nxumalo's appointment comes five months after the last head of generation, Rhulani Mathebula, quit. Thomas Conradie was appointed as his temporary replacement.

Eskom's acting CEO, Calib Cassim, said in a statement: “We have been searching for the group executive generation for a while now. It has been very difficult to find a suitable candidate who would hit the ground running. The generation recovery plan is in full swing.”

The utility is still without a CEO after Andre de Ruyter quit in February.