load shedding Eskom Stage 3 city power

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SA on track to have the worst load shedding year yet, if power cut trend continues

South Africa experienced nearly 80% of the total load shedding in 2020 during the first six months of this year, according to the CSIR.

load shedding Eskom Stage 3 city power

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South Africa experienced nearly 80% of the load shedding it did in the whole of 2020 in the first six months of this year, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The Council released its half-year update of power sector statistics on Thursday, 5 August.

CSIR POWER SECTOR REPORT

The CSIR’s power sector statistics update looked at the extent of load shedding experienced in the country and the growing role of clean energy in the first half of 2021 (H1-2021).

According to the statistics, the system demand for electricity was up by 5% in H1-2021 compared to H1-2020 but was 2.2% lower than the figures recorded during the same period in 2019.

“South Africa, unfortunately, experienced load shedding for 650 hours in H1-2021,” said CSIR Media Manager David Mandaha.

In other words, the country had load shedding for 15% of the time in the first half of the year and shed 963 GWh (GigaWatt hours). “This is 76% of the total load shedding experienced during 2020,” added the spokesperson.

WILL 2020 BE THE ‘MOST INTENSIVE’ LOAD SHEDDING YEAR YET?

Last year, 2020, was “the most intensive load shedding year”, according to the report. The country experienced 859 hours of outages in total and shed 1798 (upper limit) GWh. For comparison, in 2019, those figures were 530 hours (1352GWh) and in 2015 – another load shedding intensive year – it was 852 hours (1325GWh).

Graphic: CSIR

The report also states that South Africa has experienced electricity outages in each month of H1-2021, with March being the most affected month – 408GWh were shed, followed by June with 255GWh

The most common level of power cuts in 2021, thus far, was Stage 2 load shedding. Coal – which continues to dominate South Africa’s energy mix – deficiencies played a large role in the outages experienced.

Graphic: CSIR

“The extent of load shedding experienced was largely driven by a declining Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of the existing coal fleet where overall the EAF was 61.3% for H1-2021 (relative to 65% in 2020 and 66.9% in 2019).

“A concerning shift of the unplanned outage component of the EAF has also been highlighted where unplanned outages of up to 15 300 MW were experienced and were greater than 10 000 MW for more than 80% of H1-2021,” said Mandaha.

The full report can be viewed here.

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