HIGHER load shedding stages for South Africa being finalised

South Africa’s load shedding guidelines, bringing specifics for load shedding beyond stage 8 closer to reality, is in the final revising stages by the National Rationalised Specifications (NRS) Association of South Africa.

GUIDELINES FOR LOAD SHEDDING BEYOND STAGE 8 ARE IN FINAL REVISION STAGES

This updated code of practice will govern how municipalities must respond in the event of Stage 9 load shedding or beyond being close to completion.

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The NRS is a voluntary forum of organisations formed to collaborate and develop voluntary industry specifications to standardise equipment specifications across the South African Electricity Supply Industry.

THE UPDATED CODE OF PRACTICE WILL GOVERN HOW MUNICIPALITIES MUST RESPOND

The group is a key body involved with developing and compiling the NRS 048-9 Code of Practice – the code or regulation that essentially governs load shedding.

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The last code of practice provides distributors with directives until Stage 8, as it was not considered likely that higher stages would be necessary.

Vally Padaychee said the group is currently in the process of revising edition two of the code, which will see the current load shedding stages expanded.

THE LAST CODE PROVIDES DIRECTIVES UNTIL STAGE 8

Padaychee is the chairperson of the NRS association.

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The new code will be submitted to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) within the next few days. Once adopted by Nersa, the code has legal status.

IT WAS NOT CONSIDERED THAT HIGHER STAGE WOULD BE NECESSARY

“What we’ve sought to do with revision three is to take away the emergency contingency measure regime – because when we reach that level, beyond stage 8, the propensity to make errors is there.”

Vally Padaychee

This comes after an analyst warned that Eskom could be implementing Stage 11 load shedding this winter.

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AN ANALYST EARLIER WARNED THAT ESKOM COULD IMPLEMENT STAGE 11 LOAD SHEDDING THIS WINTER

Virtual Energy and Power director Clyde Mallinson analysed historical winter load shedding data.

He said Eskom must lift the coal fleet’s capacity factor (CF) to at least 50%. This is if they want to prevent high levels of load-shedding over the winter months.

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HE ANALYSED HISTORICAL WINTER LOAD SHEDDING DATA

“Load-shedding maximum and average monthly results based on coal fleet capacity factors as predicted for January and February,”

the caption accompanying his predictions on Twitter said.